The Shadow Behind the Mirror
by Pale Wolf
Summary: Alternate universes were never a mystery. But the Shadow Mirrors, despite not having planned to be here, don't have any intention of leaving. Not until they're ready to fix home.
1. Prologue: So Close, Yet So Far

Disclaimer: No copyright is mine, thus no copyrighted character is. If you recognize them from something that's not written by 'Pale Wolf', I have no legal claim to them. Frankly I don't really own this prologue either, it's mostly writing up scenes as they appeared in the source material so the people reading this know roughly what's going on (well, the first scene's mine, at least).

The Shadow on the Other Side of the Mirror

By Pale Wolf

Prologue

So Close, Yet So Far Away...

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

The Stargate looked somehow forlorn. The alien device was covered in a tarp, for its planned shutdown. The rest of the base was no better off... it existed solely for the Stargate, after all.

Samantha Carter didn't really feel like looking at it. She just sat in one of the briefing room's chairs, waiting. Daniel must have been thinking of... a lot, as he stood, looking out the window at it. The Stargate... Sam loved it, but it was more than just that to Daniel. And to Teal'c, for that matter. For her it was work she loved... for them, though...

This shutdown was ill-advised... it was an ostrich burying its head in the sand and thinking the butcher didn't see it. They'd already pissed off the goa'uld in general, Apophis in particular, way too much to hope he was just going to leave them alone.

And despite the grand dreams of the President, the Stargate Program's first year hadn't brought back any magical superscience device to save the world.

All three of them looked up hopefully as their team leader, the older Colonel Jonathan (nobody called him anything but 'Jack') O'Neill, walked into the otherwise-empty briefing room, stepping up into the center of their group.

He rubbed his chin, sighing, and shook his head. "... Hammond's given up. They're gonna bury the gate. Day after tomorrow."

Sam took a deep, slow breath. That... was it, huh?

Teal'c straightened up. "Then I must return through the Stargate as soon as possible." Back to his homeworld... Samantha understood. Just because the United States was bowing out of this war didn't mean it was over. He still had his responsibilities to take care of. Of course, the shutdown ordered by Senator Kinsey had been proceeding without consideration for 'details' like that... Hammond would authorize it, though.

"Yes," Daniel agreed. "We _all_ should go through the gate as soon as possible."

"Whoawhoawhoa," Sam interrupted. "Go through? To where?"

"To the coordinates I got in the other reality."

Sam wasn't really sure what to think of that story Daniel had spun, but he had come home with an energy-weapon-blasted arm and a whole lot of panic. ... Though seriously, her and the Colonel? That was... that was... certainly something. And yes, she found that part more mind-boggling than the 'travelled to an alternate reality in time to witness an alien attack conquering or destroying Earth'.

"Daniel, dammit-!"

"Jack! It was real." They stared one another down for a moment.

Sam frowned. "Hey, even if it was, how do we know that that address correlates with this reality?" Just because it had been the staging point for an attack in one possible arrangement of events didn't mean it had to be the case every time.

Daniel shrugged. "Well... there's only one way to find out, isn't there?"

Teal'c nodded calmly. "We should enter the coordinates and attempt to open the gate."

Daniel nodded. There was a moment of silence as they all chewed on that.

"Okay, wait, hold on." Sam rubbed her forehead. "Has anyone considered that we would be in gross violation of orders?" She looked up at O'Neill. "Sir, we would be court-martialed the _second_ we got back."

"If." The Colonel sat down. "If we got back."

Daniel looked sharply at him. "Jack, if we don't go through, what I saw in the other reality could happen here. This whole _planet_ could be wiped out."

It wasn't like they didn't already know that. Still... it was worth repeating, and repeatedly chewing on, until the planet _wasn't_ facing annihilation.

Daniel let that sink in for a bit before continuing. "Now... in the other reality, by the time I left, Sara was dead." He eyed O'Neill... probably not quite sure how the man would take the mention of his ex-wife. "Carter, your whole family was dead... Hell, _I_ was dead. _Everyone_ was dead."

O'Neill interrupted before Daniel could continue. "Daniel, I _get_ it!"

"Okay! Well don't you think we should _see_ if we can stop the same slaughter from happening here?" O'Neill met his eyes for a moment, and then turned away. "... Let me ask you something, Jack. If we don't go through now. And the gould do attack later... How are you gonna feel?"

O'Neill snorted, standing up and turning to look out the window, at the covered gate.

Sam shook her head. "... How are just the four of us going to stop the attack anyway? Even if we do go through?"

O'Neill rubbed his eyes.

"Well, we'd have a lot better chance now, than we would trying to stop an overwhelming onslaught later. Trust me, I have _seen_ it."

Teal'c spoke up. "If the coordinates are for a goa'uld world which is not on the Abydos cartouche... the goa'uld will most likely not expect us. ... I believe a medical attack could be successful."

"Surgical attack, Teal'c," O'Neill corrected with a sigh. "It's called a surgical attack, and I'd feel like an idiot."

Carter blinked, looking up. "... Sir?"

O'Neill turned around. "Was answering Daniel's question. ... If we don't do something now, and they do attack later, I'd feel like an idiot."

He took a moment to think it over... and then nodded to Daniel. "We go."

Teal'c stood... Sam craned her neck up. When he was on the ground it was always so much easier to forget how _big_ he was... "I, too, will go."

Slowly, the eyes of all three men turned to Samantha.

O'Neill paused for a moment. "... It's not an order, Captain."

She nodded. "... I understand that, Colonel. Thank you." ... Screw it. Better to be court-martialed than caught on the ground. "I'm going." She stood up.

Jack clapped his hands together. "All right, let's get our gear. We're not gonna have time to turn around, so be sure to pack your floss and spare undies."

Daniel sighed. "Jack..."

Carter had to agree, silently. Not one of his best.

"Hey, they can't all be gold."

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

"Why...?" Selain Meneth's expression didn't change, but she certainly felt like cringing as the young man's voice came over the tactical radio. It was a violation of protocol, but nobody had the heart to tell him off for it. Not now. "Why does this have to be happe-?"

The sudden end of the transmission marked the death of Master Sergeant Ryusei Date at the hand of his former commanding officer. Selain swallowed. For all he'd done, he deserved so much more...

Her hands moved over the controls of her RGV-30 Randgrid. He'd bought time for Selain's unit to come into position to receive the oncoming enemies. He may have deserved a better end than he'd received, but he _certainly_ deserved better than to have his sacrifice wasted because she was mooning over things she couldn't change.

To the left, the blocky, green-painted, vaguely humanoid forms of the rest of her team braced, as she was doing, settling the long cannons over their right shoulders to face downrange. Neither the enemy, nor the Tesla-Leicht Institute they were protecting, was within visual range, but the massive breadth of today's battlefield was well within their sensor capabilities. There was more or less nothing here... a large swathe of Colorado was uninhabited to allow the top-secret research facility to do its work, and the terrain in this area was arid and rocky, the only feature was whether the rock was flatland or mountain or canyon.

They'd been doing this long enough they didn't need orders. They preferred them just the same, and so all waited until Lieutenant Brookside's taut, "Fire."

Four fingers tightened on the triggers near-simultaneously, and the Randgrids shook as their immense cannons fired a single round apiece, each one tearing across the desert at twenty times the speed of sound. The range was around ten kilometers, but they were recieving targeting telemetry from a unit to the front, and with the projectiles semi-guided, hits weren't impossible... Just difficult.

Seconds after firing, a single one of the oncoming Gespensts vanished from Selain's screen. It had been the one she was targeting. The remainder had been able to evade, or sustain the damage... as the tactical update came in, she nodded. One more glancing hit, from Lindsay Abbott, but the machine was still coming.

As were its thirty-four compatriots. And that one next-generation machine, coming up behind his subordinates after having dealt with the unit slowing them down. Luckily, that one, at least, was a slug next to his Gespenst Mark Two units, and didn't seem inclined to tell them to slow down and wait for him.

"Guh... this's gonna suck..." Lindsay.

Jacob Whey chuckled. "Could be worse. The amount breaking through the outer lines could be a lot more than thirty-six."

"Startin' to envy those outer lines..."

"Stow it," Selain interrupted. "They're not stopping while you chat."

Their machines finished reloading, and all four fired in unison once more. Two more blips disappeared off the radar - one previously unscratched one hit by Jacob, and Selain finished off the damaged one.

Jacob snickered over the radio. "Relax, my finger ain't slowin' down on the trigger. I don't plan to leave this life with anything left unsaid."

"Waitwaitwait!" Lindsay yelped. "I don't plan on leaving this life at all!"

Albert Brookside sighed. Selain could practically hear the elderly Lieutenant shaking his head. "Well, if we can all agree on that..."

Another round of shots. They were getting very close now, two more fell by the wayside.

Selain's finger shifted on her control stick. "Bandits are well in range for missiles. Alpha Strike them, sir?"

"Mm... negative. Wait to range 5k."

"Oy, boss, that's optimal range for their Splits," Jacob noted.

Selain nodded, shifting finger back to the trigger as the four fired another set of rounds. "They'll be distracted and might let ours in."

"Ah, what the hell. We're just buying time for the next team anyway." Jacob's machine shifted slightly, the top hatch on the shields over each arm opening up. "Next round, yeah?"

"You got it," the Lieutenant confirmed.

Lindsay sighed. "Lav-3, prepping for Alpha Strike." Her Randgrid's feet shifted on the rocks, positioning her machine to absorb the recoil of a full barrage

Selain tapped a few controls, tying her Randgrid's long-range missiles to the trigger, and allowing them to lock on. "Lavender-2, Alpha Strike ready. This next round is going to be the merge. You won't have time to say anything else, Jake, so get it done now."

"Ah, shit, don't rush a man!"

There was a sudden blur on their screens, and the radar blips suddenly fuzzed, as the Randgrid's computers lost an accurate track on the locations of each Gespenst, and began 'guessing' from what it could pierce of their jamming.

Selain tsked. "Forward UAV's splashed."

"Uh, one small step for...?"

"Laaaaaaaame," Lindsay declared... and the forward Gespenst line hit the arbitrarily decided five kilometer line in the Colorado soil.

From each Randgrid's shoulder, in quick succession, five large MLM-32 'Matrix' missiles shot out, the shields closing as soon as they were empty. As the fourty missiles tore ahead, fanning out, the four Randgrids fired their cannons for what was probably the last time of this engagement. Barely a second later, the missiles all reached terminal range, and split open, releasing their sub-munitions - four smaller, more maneuverable missiles, each locking in on the targets designated by their firing machine, and spiraling around the particle beam blasts as the Gespensts attempted to shoot them down.

The enemy line was only barely in visible range, and it would have made for a pretty light show, as pink beams fired up from the ground, highlighted against the mountains beyond them, and little sparks of flame twisted around them, diving for the barely visible shadows they were targeting. With the setting sun to light it all in red... But people were dying out there... and more people would die if they didn't.

The Gespenst's MP-23 particle rifle was built for anti-vehicle combat, not shooting down missiles, so it wasn't a surprise that they experienced limited success in shooting down the highly agile Matrix sub-munitions - it was more of a surprise that one of them actually managed it once.

Between the electronic countermeasures, the agility of the Gespensts, and the skill of the pilots, Selain only expected a hit rate around twenty percent, and sure enough, that number was borne out as, amid the wild maneuvering, thirty-one small missiles approached their targets on a good course.

Then the Skynet defensive system kicked in, firing small, contained blasts of metal fragments at the oncoming missiles.

Given the amount incoming all at once, and the fairly narrow area it was coming in on, the activated Skynets couldn't shoot down more than four of the Matrix sub-munitions each before they hit the Gespensts.

The armour was fairly tough, so they'd focused fire on one unit apiece. Fifteen missiles finally hit, after a single wild second, slamming into the Gespensts' thick armour plates... The Lieutenant's target, and Jacob's target, both fell to the ground, wreathed in explosions. Lindsay's target, and Selain's, remained intact, though with scorched holes all over their dark blue paint.

The cannon fire had been more successful, blotting out three more Gespensts.

"Splash five Beowulves, I repeat, splash five Beowulves!" Brookside called out, as he began maneuvering.

The enemy units hadn't been idle, themselves. Twenty-eight had survived until the five kilometer mark, and though only twenty-three survived to the four-kilometer mark, all twenty-eight had had ample time to pull the trigger.

Each unit fired three MMM-12 'Split' missiles from the packs on their back. The Split was similar to the Matrix, but shorter-ranged, slower to reach the target. The four sub-munitions released at terminal phase were equal, though.

As the cloud of warheads spread above them... it became apparent that Brookside's maneuvering was for naught.

All three hundred and thirty-six dove straight for Jacob's Randgrid. "Ah, _shit_!"

Jacob was a better pilot than any of the Beowulves. The Randgrid was nowhere near as agile as the Gespenst, but when you added in the far, far superiour jammers equipped by the Lavender squad, only thirty of the original three hundred managed to keep up with the rapid sidestepping, and near-pirouettes performed by Jacob's clunky-looking machine, the others detonating in midair, on the ground, fireballs blotting Jacob from view and radar as the Skynet protecting his own machine engaged...

There was a thunderous boom, and fragments of metal flew out of the firestorm, pelting Lindsay and Lieutenant Brookside's machines.

Selain swallowed, trying to get past the dryness in her throat. "... Lavender-4 is down. Sunfire." The brevity code for a reactor containment breach. "... No chute."

"TLI, where the hell is our backup?" Brookside roared into the radio.

A woman's calm voice came over. "Stand by, Lavender. We've got another incoming missile wave, Avalon's tied up intercepting it. Defensive line is shrinking now, Knox will be there to back you up in five minutes."

"We're not going to have that kind of time," Selain noted, watching the incoming Gespensts.

"TLI, the breach came way too fast! That's not going to be soon enough."

"Roger. I'll dispatch reinforcement your way, hold out as long as you can."

Brookside tsked, closing the line. "In other words everyone else is just as screwed as we are and there ain't backup to spare, so we're on our own."

"... Good," Lindsay muttered. "I wouldn't want to get bailed out before getting a crack at them for killing Jake."

"... Might be the first time we're in agreement," Selain noted, bringing up the shorter-ranged weapons held in her Randgrid's hands. M-13 fragmenting cannon (the colloquials insisted on calling it a mech-scaled shotgun) in the right, CCS-3 incision knife in the left.

"Phht." Brookside stepped up to join the pair of them. "I sure as shit don't want to die praying for backup while the women protect me."

Range three kilometers. The Gespensts opened fire with their particle beam rifles. Essentially as soon as they'd pulled the triggers, twenty-three narrow, relativistic beams of hydrogen crossed the Colorado Desert.

The Lavender team's preemptive separation, each sidestepping in a different direction, shook off most of them, only two beams hit each unit.

Each beam's means of dealing damage was to superheat the armour, causing it to vaporize under the impact. On the Randgrid's anti-beam armour, that was... not impossible, but near enough. Certainly impenetrable to the MP-23.

The heat rapidly conducted throughout the entire frame, spreading, but weakening as it spread until it wasn't enough to even mildly cook the armour, and then radiating away. Small, centimeters-sized flakes of armour vaporized under the impacts, before the heat reached the conductive skeleton and was dissipated.

There was a momentary waver in the Gespenst maneuvers, before they put away the rifles and accelerated. They must have used up the last of their missiles taking out Jacob... with their primary ranged weapon ineffective, they seemed to have realized they were going to have to close to short range.

That was when Selain's team opened up with the shotguns, calmly settling the rounded, red-visored, blue-painted frame of a Gespenst into her sights, squeezing the trigger, and reacquiring the target to fire again. It took her about three shots to take down a Gespenst. All hit, but it took some work to get through the Gespenst's armour plate. "Shack on... shack on... splash one."

... Well, Selain was calm, and the Lieutenant was fairly professional. Lindsay was yelling incoherent, and most likely impolite, words and pulling the trigger as fast as it'd cycle.

"Abbot!" Brookside barked, as they continued laying down a pattern of fire. "Don't flip out! Splash one!"

"Sorry sir! Uh, splash two!"

"Splash one, we have merge in three," Selain reported, as her next target - one of the ones pitted by the missile strike - took several metal fragments through the holes in its frame, reactor blowing it apart a moment afterward.

The Gespensts were in point-blank range now. Another shot from Lieutenant Brookside cut one in half, and then the remaining seventeen came for them. Evenly split, six for each (well, five for Brookside, as he'd just killed his sixth).

The three stakes on the Gespensts' left arms were glowing a brilliant blue as plasma wrapped around them... and Selain lost track of the others as she was surrounded.

Her hands danced over the controls. Her Randgrid's left arm came up as the first plasma stake came in. Slip the knife between the stakes, and... Gespenst's arm was trashed, sliced right down the middle. She brought the right leg up, and spun around, kicking it back. She could finish it, but it had just lost its primary weapon and she had bigger fish to fry.

Like that one that had connected with the stake, in the thick armour over her cockpit. It began melting through, so she brought up the shotgun and blew its head off. Wasn't going to kill it, but it was blind for a second as the backup sensors kicked in.

She used that second to snap her Randgrid's arms together, catching its arm between them, and lever the Gespenst around to block the next four from getting into the tangle with her immediately.

While carving it up with her Randgrid's knife, she began firing the shotgun as they attempted to get around the obstruction. Two shots... another one down, but she didn't have the breath to report it.

"Gah!" came Lindsay's voice. Selain only had a second to glance over to her Randgrid - pinned between three Gespensts and their plasma stakes holding her machine up in the air, with two more lying in tatters on the rocky ground beneath her - before she growled, "Initiating Code Ash to Ash!"

The Randgrid's self-detonation vaporized the artillery mech. Nothing would be left for the Beowulves to learn from. The three Gespensts, themselves, were too close to her, and fell back, destroyed or disabled... either way, they weren't moving anymore.

Selain gritted her teeth, turning back to her remaining four. She continued backing away as they approached - it gave her enough time to get another one down with the shotgun (unfortunately, it seemed to be the one whose arm she'd wrecked), before having to pin her knife into the torso of another to keep it away. She pumped the trigger twice, blowing its lethal left arm off, and used the hardened blade to swing it around in front of the last two.

"Shit! Sorry Selain, I'm trashed, ejecting now!" A glance showed Brookside's machine had taken a pounding, with chunks of armour blown off, the reactor exposed... His cockpit block tore loose, rapidly flying away, as the self-destruct sequence counted down.

Or... it should have. As soon as it hit the air, the nearest Gespenst's Skynet system turned, taking aim and lacing the ejection system with fragments of metal.

The Skynet normally, as built by the factory, specifically excluded ejection systems from their auto-targeting. The Beowulves... had a different setting.

Selain growled, and slashed down with the knife, carving her 'shield' Gespenst's cockpit in two as Albert Brookside's Randgrid detonated, taking the unit that had killed him with it.

Fine. She could live with that. Six remaining Beowulves from the leaker unit. She doubted she could kill them all, especially not with the commander coming up behind, but she could get a few, her short-range Phalanx missiles should be good for at least one or two - get in close, and set off her own self-destruct. She might even catch the commander with her.

But even as she began planning this, a blue glow surrounded her. "What?"

The woman from TLI came on the line. "Sorry for the wait, Lavender Platoon. We've got Lykeios active, and are picking up the defensive units." She sighed. "... Don't die just yet. You held the line. Vindel has jumped with Aguieus, we're at ten minutes to the final jump. You've got a billet on Avalon waiting for you."

Selain closed her eyes as the Gespensts attempting to attack her vanished. Or rather, as she vanished, the desert disappearing around her. Held the line... that was all Ryusei Date had gotten, and that was all her team was going to get.

... In times like these, that was pretty good.

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Jack O'Neill was starting to wonder if this was going to become a habit. Captured by Ra... three years of retirement later, captured by Apophis... less than a year after that captured by his young friend Skaa - no, Klorel. Skaara was in there, but right now, the alien Klorel, son of Apophis, was in control.

It would be really nice if he could go a year without landing in _some_ manner of dire straits. Just... for variety.

Teal'c walked behind him, and Ska-Klorel ahead. He wasn't armed, but that wasn't really what was stopping him from grabbing Klorel and beating him around until the pain made him release Skaara - for all that Klorel _was_ armed, superhumanly strong, and of a race that had apparently been mistaken by early Earth cultures for gods, Jack O'Neill was, without bragging, the best, and he knew it. It was because he tried to pull insane stunts that he pulled them off so often.

Nah, the reason Jack wasn't giving Klorel a lesson in unarmed combat had less to do with Klorel himself, and more to do with the very large number of his father's Serpent Guard surrounding them. Who dares wins and all, but there was a limit, and no point in suicide. Not when a better opportunity would arise. And they always did.

The group filed through a thin opening, and came out in a familiar room - they'd just been there a while earlier. Gaudy as hell, covered in gold plating, thousands of hieroglyphs all across the walls... Apophis seriously needed to fire his interior decorator. The guards filed in behind them, taking up spaces around the bridge.

Jack barely glanced in their direction, filing their locations away for future reference. Seven total. Three in full armour, four not wearing that gigantic snake-shaped helmet, they'd be easier targets when the time came. And they were carrying the much more compact and dangerous zatni... zatke... zats. The zats were nonlethal, but Jack had done enough corridor fighting to know those long-ass staves would be spectacularly unwieldy, even in the gaping corridors of this ship (honestly, they were unwieldy in open space, he far preferred Earth weapons). Conveniently, they were also the closest - two helmeted guys holding their staffs in a pretty motionless parade position at the back of the bridge, one more along the right side behind Klorel and his prisoners, with an uncovered one beside him, and a pair of guards lacking the helmets on both the left side of the bridge, and the right side.

And he continued following Klorel in, glancing outside the window at the crazed swirls of hyperspace. Klorel moved to the front of the bridge, and came to a stop, turning around and looking O'Neill up and down. "You wish to go home to your planet?" That reverberating voice the goa'uld used was always a delight to the ears...

Jack frowned slightly, eyeing Klorel. How much control was Skaara exerting...? Was he going to let them go? "Of course."

Klorel turned to one of his father's Serpent Guard. "Jaf'fa. Rel toc remoc."

The metal-armoured soldier in question stepped up to one of the spheres in the room - the goa'uld ship's bridge - and laid a hand on it, as Jack and Teal'c watched. It began to glow faintly.

"O'Neill," Teal'c spoke up. "Prepare yourself for-"

The room suddenly leapt forward, the floor bucking under him and sending him hurtling forward into the console to the front (also gold, of course).

"... extreme deceleration."

Jack came back up, rubbing his forehead. "Yeah. Thanks, Teal'c." Well... he had a hard head, he'd be fine. A little _more_ brain damage couldn't hurt.

... As he came up, he saw out the window. Klorel stepped up beside him, clasping his hands on the console. ... He'd never actually seen Saturn from this side before. He'd probably have appreciated the view, if he weren't aboard an alien attack vessel about to destroy all that he held dear and all.

Klorel smirked, glancing at him. "You will get to see your home... one last time. Before you, and everyone on your planet, are destroyed. And your kind... will disturb the goa'uld... no more."

O'Neill... simply stared out the front window as Saturn passed by. Mostly because he needed to hide the smirk until he could get it under control. That huge gold front panel was just a little reflective, and he could see a distorted, black-clad image at the back entrance of the bridge.

_Every_ situation gets better. Though when this was all said and done, he was so going to need to remind Carter to stay low when she was being sneaky. It was apparently not really necessary, as the Serpent Guard clearly hadn't spent anywhere near as long as he had doing special forces work, but still. It was just good form, and the student reflected on the teacher.

Since Carter and Daniel hadn't gotten caught yet... hm. After she scoped out the situation, she'd duck back out. Plan a bit, and then make her move. Best way to run the rescue would be... tossing in a flashbang, he was sure he'd packed some. Then go in gunning when everyone was blind, disoriented, and ears ringing. He'd have to time closing his eyes to avoid getting blinded... the ears, he was going to have to suck up.

Her reflection vanished from the panel, and he let himself relax a bit. The snakes might not be as good as he was, but enough time and even the really unobservant can see things. He let his body hang loose. Was going to need to move soon to support them, a seven-to-two fight was a little much to leave to them.

Fifteen long seconds passed before he heard a faint rattling. Grenade pin. Then... that was the sound of a grenade rolling against metal. Bit faint, outside the bridge. Different plan than he'd thought. He'd have to improvise.

Hiss of smoke... and then three of the Serpent Guard thumped out of the room to check on the sudden source of noise and smoke.

The sounds of rapid nine millimeter gunfire were not even slightly surprising... well, to him, though Teal'c jolted around rather quickly - kind of gratifying to be able to outshine Teal'c every so often, after the man's demonstrations of tracking skills. It took a few seconds of intermittent fire to teach them their proper place in this solar system (dead and/or dying).

And then Carter came in through the door, gun up, and laced the first unhelmeted guard she saw with gunfire - that was the one on the middle left side of the bridge, near where Jack was.

He fell back after a short five-round burst, and Carter moved further in, taking cover behind the sarcophagus that dominated the bridge.

Jack, for his part, simply noted as the guard nearest to him decided to turn around start trying to shoot Carter.

Never one to let decency restrain him, he swung his leg around in a short arc that terminated right between the man's legs. There was an armour plate there, but he'd still feel it. Swing both fists down as he crumpled over in pain from the first...

Daniel came in the door next, wielding two pistols... oy. And Jack's thought about those staff weapons was proven true, as a helmeted guard sucked up something like half of both magazines and fell over onto his back before he could even bring the long thing's business end around in Danny's general direction.

Daniel ducked to the far wall of the bridge, taking cover behind one of those huge gold pillars just as one of the guards began firing his zat at him. Daniel crept out from behind the pillar and began exchanging fire with the man... scoring headshots, but they kept deflecting off that damned skullcap the man was wearing. Not only decorative after all, just mostly.

Teal'c simply walked up to Daniel's opponent, punching him in the face and apparently more or less knocking him out. A little sourly, O'Neill finished off his own.

Carter continued exchanging fire with the last one, on the middle right, but she didn't seem to be getting anywhere. Teal'c stepped up to him when she was ducking to reload, grabbed his arm and spun under it, and planted an elbow in the man's face. Then a left cross while he staggered.

Daniel moved up to the sarcophagus, trying to get to O'Neill's position... and then Klorel made his presence known, grabbing the archaeologist's vest in his right hand, raising the left with its golden glove thing, as it began glowing orange... the torture ray function. Daniel slowly fell to his knees.

Fortunately, one of his guns had skittered near to Jack. Jack grabbed it, bringing it up. "Skaara!"

The Abydonian boy didn't even glance in his direction. Smirking.

Jack's aim with the handgun wavered slightly. ... He didn't want to do this. Skaara had reminded him of his own son... "Skaara, don't!"

The possessed boy leaned forward, not paying attention to anyone but Daniel.

"O'Neill! You must take action!" ... Teal'c didn't want to watch Daniel die either.

And right now, he had to choose. But Skaara... he didn't even know if there was hope for him. A long moment passed... he hoped not too long for Daniel... before he smoothly squeezed the trigger twice.

Skaara falling to the ground was... anticlimactic, but that was just what guns did. No big show, they just killed you. Daniel clutched to the sarcophagus to stay up.

... The room was clear. O'Neill put down the pistol, and moved to Skaara's body, rolling him to face up. "... O'Neill..." ... At least he was back for his final moments.

"Skaara... I'm sorry." At least, for once, he got the chance to apologize to someone he'd failed so completely.

The boy tried to smile... and then his eyes shut.

Teal'c's voice came. "Colonel O'Neill."

"... Yeah, _give_ me a second here." It wasn't that he wasn't used to losing people... but he preferred to at least have a few seconds to mourn.

"I cannot."

Fine. Jack looked up, and out the window. ... That was Earth. The rest of SG-1 slowly stood, moving to look out the window.

"I thought you said we couldn't be there for at least a year." Daniel seemed to be back up.

Carter shook her head. "... I guess the ship can go way faster than ten times the speed of light..." She looked back at O'Neill. "Colonel, we saw the Death Gliders. They're prepping for launch, sir."

O'Neill took a deep breath. Mourning time was over, or a whole lot more people were going to die. "Captain Carter?"

"Sir?"

"Were you able to put enough C-4 around the ship to make a dent?"

She nodded. "We placed charges where they should generate secondary explosions, so... yes sir. Should make a hell of a dent."

"Thank you, Captain."

"... Given enough time, I might be able to figure out..." The controls to the ship, he presumed.

"Negative." He paused a moment, then realized he needed to explain. "We should expect some of their reinforcements through that door any second." He shook his head. "Stand by to detonate your charges, on my order."

"Yes sir."

"Wait!"

Oh, for the love of... "Daniel! If we don't stop them now, we may never stop them."

He nodded, fumbling in his pack. "Yeah, I know that..." He pulled out a block of C-4, moving around to the front of the bridge console and planting it. "Let's just make it as big a dent as possible. Okay?"

Wow. Had Dannyboy become a half-decent soldier while Jack wasn't looking? Jack simply nodded.

Carter set the detonator. "... Ready and awaiting your order, sir." She looked up at him.

"Okay..." He took a breath. "Well, I suppose now is the time for me to say something profound."

A long pause as he tried to think of just what he could say to the people who were going to blow up this ship to save Earth... while they were on it. Something to hold to their heart when they sacrificed their lives...

He shook his head. "Nothing comes to mind. Let's do it." Nothing good enough for these people.

Carter just blinked, nodding.

Teal'c paused, turning to him. "O'Neill. Apophis's ship approaches." The large pyramidal shape drifted into view through the window ahead of them.

"... We overheard in the gate room. He said he would rejoin Klorel 'once they came out of the shadows'," Daniel noted.

Jack frowned. "... Teal'c. If we can knock out this ship, will it stop them?"

Teal'c simply shook his head. "It will not. Apophis's vessel is equipped with defense shields. He will still be able to destroy your cities from high above."

Thumping came at the locked door. Well... the reinforcements were here. Jack thought fast. "_Tell_ me those C-4 charges are on automatic timer."

Carter nodded. "They're on automatic timer."

"Good. How long do we have?" He glanced down at his watch.

"Twenty-four hours."

"... _Twenty-four hours_?"

Carter shook her head. "At the time, sir, I still thought we were light years away."

The thumping intensified. "Just a _minute_!" Could barely hear himself think over all that racket, he'd really appreciate if the bad guys could be polite once in a while. He turned back to his team. "Teal'c. Work with me, buddy. Is there any other way out of here?"

"... None." And the doors began to whine open, slowly...

O'Neill tsked. "Take cover." They slipped behind the various projections of the bridge, as the door continued to be pulled open. "This is turning out to be a bad day..."

SG-1 opened fire as soon as the door was open enough. Jack emptied the pistol he'd borrowed from Daniel, and they fired several zat-blasts through the door...

It was pretty confused on the other side back there, he was pretty sure a few fell back... not enough, though. A large ball was lobbed through the door, rolling up to where Jack took cover. And then it flared with brilliant, painful white light.

Yyyyyuuuuup. Bad day.

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

It was night now. The sun had finished setting... There was only one feature visible for kilometers of desert and plateau - a facility, comprised of a tower, a number of outbuildings, and a sprawling hangar area. With a single machine standing at the eastern tip of the hangar. Simply looking to the east.

The EG-X Soulgain was a huge hunk of metal, a blue humanoid construction twice the already-impressive height and around four times the size of the Randgrid or Gespenst. White blades curling back from the forearms, and over the head. Green... he tried not to think of them as gems... scattered over its outer surface.

The red-haired, white-clad pilot Axel Almer had no idea what at least half of this thing did, it was an experimental prototype based off an already-mysterious technology sample that he'd frankly just grabbed a crash course on. His old unit was already trashed and nothing else they could spare was likely to even slow down the special unit. The weirder aspects of the control scheme would probably be months for him to master... combining the body frame control and the way the entire cockpit was a screen, it was almost more like becoming the mech than piloting it.

Axel was the last man standing guard, alone. Everyone else... was either loaded aboard the Arks, dead, or had chosen not to risk this one, last-ditch escape, and had already scattered. Axel wished them the best, but... he doubted they'd live out the year.

"Axel, the only ones left are us," she noted, the communicator displaying her face. His... his 'it's complicated', Lemon Browning.

He restrained the urge to run a hand through his hair - Soulgain would mimic it, and it would just look utterly humiliating. "I'll say it again, the odds are against us."

She shook her head. "Well... I'm kind of looking forward to seeing the other side."

"Are you serious? Don't tell me it's because of that thing of yours."

Lemon laughed. ... It suited her. He kind of wished she did it more often. "Perhaps."

Axel gnawed on his lower lip. "... You do know, even if you make it to the other side-"

"I know," she interrupted. "I'm not expecting anything. I'm just curious. That's all."

Axel frowned. She'd never explained her reasons... their relationship wasn't really one where they could casually ask each other things like that.

"Anyway..." she decided to fill the silence. Neither of them liked silence. "You've got to trust the Numbers we've sent ahead. Those children will arrange everything for us."

Axel tsked. "... I've said all I plan to about those dolls. Human fate should be decided by humans."

She seemed to be drawing breath to say something, but seven blue lights became visible over the mountains in the distance. Drive flares from the incoming enemies... typical. He hadn't bothered to wait for the rest of his forces to catch up, he'd gone ahead with what remained of his breakthrough team. She turned to her own display, and the hologram of her face shifted in his cockpit, so as not to block battle data. "... Codename's the usual. Assault 1."

"Lemon. Go ahead with Vindel and the dolls." He shifted, taking up a battle stance. Soulgain mimicked him.

She blinked. "... What are you planning?"

He shook his head. "I hate running away with our tails between our legs. ... With that power of his, he'll be a threat to us. Or more than just us."

"It can't be that. You know he won't be able to follow us."

"I'm not so sure. You haven't forgotten how many times he's chased us down already? I want to finish this."

The machines in front of the drive flares now became visible. Six Gespenst Mark Twos... and a single heavier machine, massive blocky shoulders, a single long, bladelike horn stretching from its head. The Gespenst Mark Three.

Axel tsked. "Well... they're here. Those damned ghosts of the rotted Federation."

"Shadow... Mirror..." came the commander's deep, slow voice. Open transmission to anyone that would listen. "You... who spread hatred into the world... cannot escape..." His speech was even more broken up than it was the last time... as if he said half of any given statement, and then needed to collect his thoughts. "I would not exist... without being created... The world would not exist... without silence..."

Lemon frowned. "... What the hell is he talking about?"

Axel shook his head. "... He's gotten even crazier since the last time we fought."

He continued on. "You will never create... the world you wish for... I will pierce through it..."

Axel glanced at the readouts. ... All his units were emitting even more power... their reactors should be burning from the inside out, trying to generate that much. He opened a channel to the lead unit. "We are the ones who wished for eternal chaos, Beowulf. What the hell is it that you want? You've won. We'll find our victory on the other side of this defeat."

"Victory... defeat... such things are without meaning... You may only... be created or destroyed... that is all." He laughed... deep. Slow. Axel... had no idea what amused him so. "Creation and destruction... destruction and creation... Creation _is_ destruction... the destruction of creation..." The Gespensts accelerated.

Axel closed the channel with a tsk. "I wonder if he even understands us anymore."

"Axel, what do you plan to do?"

"Same as I told you. Settling this once and for all."

"Wait..." She was so rarely at a loss for words.

Axel shook his head, sighing. "... Looking back, I should never have let him live. I had him in my sights... just couldn't kill an old teammate. But... he's dangerous. He may not even be human anymore."

"But we don't have _time_ until Wonderland jumps."

"... There's enough for him to get into the hangar. Lykeios still has to charge up for the mass. I'll make sure we jump without obstructions."

Lemon pursed her lips. "... I never have been able to talk you out of something you've set your mind to. You said 'we'. I'm holding you to that." She shifted, presumably keying in commands. "We'll jump as soon as we get the charge. Last hundred and thirty tons are for you. It's set to jump immediately after charging, and self-destruct immediately after. _Don't_ be late."

"Understood. Now go!"

"... Axel. There will be differences between this world and the next. Please don't forget, the same goes for Beowulf." She closed the channel.

Axel sighed. "... You're right, Lemon. But what if there's something else like Beowulf when we get there? What do we do then?" He braced. They were getting in damn close now. "... We can't run away twice. We won't survive it. So I need to know... I can handle him. Maybe not the whole damn Federation... but Beowulf."

He opened the channel to the enemy. "Beowulf. I'm getting out of this world. I plan to go alive. And... _I'm taking your head with me, KYOSUKE NANBU!_" He leapt forward, and a thought initiated the thrusters.

"... All units... spread out. Take him down." The Mark III Gespenst fell back, but the Mark IIs accelerated, opening fire with their particle beams.

Soulgain's armour wasn't anti-beam hardened, but it was still tough enough to suck up the first six shots without flinching. They only had time for one volley before he was among them.

At this point, it felt less like a battle, and more like a good old-fashioned brawl. He... Soulgain... grabbed the nearest one by its extended right arm, and swung it into the one next to it. A kick shattered another one of the smaller mechs.

"Destruction... silence..."

"Just shut the hell up, you damn freak!" Axel backhanded a Gespenst, sending the machine tumbling back and flying at Beowulf's Mark III.

The heavier midnight blue machine simply batted it away with its left arm. The Gespenst flew off to the side, crumpled into a useless heap.

Axel didn't let it bother him. Beowulf was probably letting his men get the measure of the unknown new unit Axel was driving, but as long as the real heavy hitter was being... chivalrous... there was a chance.

A Gespenst tried to drive its plasma stakes into him, but he held it back with an outstretched arm, and then crushed its head... there was a... squelching, and a grayish fluid dripped down.

"... I see Beowulf wasn't the only thing to get weirder." He kicked the trapped unit, crushing the cockpit. He wasn't specially trying to kill the Beowulves, but if they didn't eject, he wasn't going to save them. He didn't have anywhere near the advantage he'd need to be taking special nonlethal measures.

And then jerked Soulgain's elbow back, cracking the armour of that last Gespenst trying to sneak up on him. Spinning around and punching it sent it flying back... and that was it. "Beowulf! You're the only one left!"

The Mark III shifted in preparation for a charge.

Axel took the time to regain his bearings. "Sorry for the wait. I'll send you down to your subordinates, now."

"... Subordinates...? They're all the same... with the same body... artificial beings..." Beowulf laughed again. "I'll just... create... some more..."

Axel glanced at a readout. _... Seven minutes until charge. Everyone else should have left by now. This is going to be a close call either way._ "All right, Beowulf... let's do this!"

"You will rot away with the Ark." Axel could imagine the smirk as he said that. And both machines accelerated at one another.

A short stream from Beowulf's left-arm autocannon connected with Axel's Soulgain, but he simply charged right through it.

His armour could take it, and... he swirled low as he cut off his charge, ducking below the stake on the Mark III's right arm, and trying to hit the legs. He connected, but only with the left leg, Beowulf had already stepped back with the right.

The Mark III spun, and Beowulf tipped it over to the side, using the left hand to spring off the ground rather than letting it turn all the way around - he was back up and jumping at Axel almost instantly.

Axel had his Soulgain _jump_, thrusters firing, carrying it over Beowulf in a flip, and tried to hammer a fist down onto the mech's head.

Beowulf shifted aside, taking the blow on the Mark III's blocky shoulders, and spun, landing his machine's heavy fist over Soulgain's hip.

Then the stake came in... Axel gritted his teeth, and only just managed to catch the arm by the fist. He punched while the primary close-combat weapon was locked up, but Beowulf managed to catch him.

The mechs stood, and then began firing thrusters... rather than escape, they'd simply try to overpower one another.

Axel grinned, showing teeth. Soulgain overclocked the Mk III, not just because of the greater size, and it was showing - Beowulf was beginning to edge back. Beowulf was good, and well-armed, but if he could keep it a wrestling match, Soulgain's size would tell. "Don't get cocky! I've got more power!"

"Press... through... Mark Three!" Suddenly, Beowulf's thrusters flared... and the arms began generating force far beyond what the Mark III's specs should allow. Soulgain began falling back.

Axel's eyes widened. That shouldn't have been possible... He'd _memorized_ the Mk III's capabilities... "Not... done... yet."

He opened up... letting his machine suck up a bit of what made him... him. He didn't understand how the damn technology worked. Even the people who'd built it didn't comprehend it, they just copied systems. But however it did... it took power from the pilot.

"Seiryuurin!" He had no damn idea what the word meant, but the TLI engineers had installed that as the voice activation for that particular ability. And because of it... Soulgain's left arm flared, glowing blue, before a beam of blue light fired off it, through the Mark III's right arm. The entire forearm came off at the elbow.

Beowulf yelled... in... pain? That hadn't gone anywhere near the cockpit... He and Axel both leapt back. Beowulf to nurse his damage, Axel to cover the sudden burst of fatigue.

"Your right arm's just the start!" It should be all downhill from here... that arm was the primary weapon.

"Destroy... Create... Sleep..." Beowulf chuckled. "Shape... does not matter." Gray fluid trickled from the broken joint. "Is it there? Is it not?" Something... green... came from the hole. "Is the right side there? Is the left side there?" Green tendrils spun together, swelling out... and the arm looked as though it had never been damaged. Beowulf breathed heavily. And then the entire machine began to... change. Grow. Redden.

Axel stepped back... in his experience, machines _did not do this_. It didn't take very long... by the end, Beowulf stood at a truly immense two hundred meters tall, towering over Soulgain five times, blocking out the moonlight. Red light... 'leaked' from seeming holes and whorls in the... 'armour' wasn't really the word anymore. 'Carapace' was closer. Sharp angles... a long tail dropping to the ground behind it... standing on sharply clawed feet.

"... I knew it. You're more of a monster than a wolf. Is that the new power you've acquired, Beowulf?"

"To silence the world... to recreate it over... You are all incapable of becoming pure beings. It is me... Yes, only me!" The now-red... being... began to glow. Plates of the carapace separated, revealing a huge sphere of pale red light. A mere second later, that sphere became a beam... as wide as Soulgain was tall...

Axel was damned glad he'd rolled aside, as he saw the Mark III's... the former Mark III's... immense feet skidding back, digging out huge divots as it was pushed back under the recoil of the blast...

It connected with the hangar behind him... wiping out a kilometers-sprawling hangar, instantly. Axel whirled. "The loading bay!" No... the refugees should be out already. He hoped. There was no way to be sure. He turned back as the glow began building up once more.

... Unfortunately, he was still on the ground, and he wasn't fast enough to get up, only barely rolling aside. The multicoloured maelstrom of light slammed into Soulgain, and drove it down through the ground, through numerous layers of protection...

Soulgain burst through the last layer, hurting, but the blast had ended... Axel didn't manage to get the engines to kick in before he slammed into the metal floor of the immense underground chamber, but that impact didn't really hurt him any more than he already was. And the sheer emptiness of the chamber lifted his heart. At the far end of the vast metal emptiness, there stood four monoliths, arrayed in a circle around one another. Soulgain stood, cradling its head in mimicry of Axel. "Ugh... I avoided a direct hit, and one shot still blew me all the way to the underground launch chamber..." With a thought, he called up the desired display. "... Still 150 seconds before it activates. Have to protect Lykeios until then. Might even have to defeat him here..."

The ground shook. Axel could not just hear it, but feel it, even through Soulgain. Steady. Slow, heavy footsteps.

Axel continued to run through the displays, giving a final check on the work. "... Authorization code, OK. Detonation timer's set... Time lag, five seconds." Axel chuckled to himself. "This is going to be one hell of an explosion."

Mechs do not roar. Humans do not roar. Axel _did not just hear that_.

He looked up, seeing the huge shadow of Beowulf's machine standing at the hole driven through the Colorado soil. "You're here. Time for the last showdown."

"Those who disrupt the silence... will be corrected!" He began charging another blast of wild light.

Even as he fired, Axel fired Soulgain's thrusters, weaving around it as it carved a hole through the ground, and rapidly climbed up the kilometers to the top of the chamber. "Take this, and fall!" Axel didn't attack Beowulf himself. Instead, he swung Soulgain's fist into the metal plating above, the last bit that was supporting Beowulf's weight.

Beowulf grunted in surprise as his machine fell into the chamber.

Axel slowly hovered above him. "Beowulf... this underground launch chamber is where it'll come to an end."

Beowulf stood once more. "Will it be yours, or the world's?" He had a sudden intake of breath as his machine looked around. "Nothing... is here... Where... is the Ark I was going to silence?"

Axel smiled. "They jumped away. To the new frontier. Whether they made it or not... I don't know."

"Jumped away?"

Axel's smile simply widened. This was going to hurt. Both of them. "Limiter released." Normally Soulgain had locks on its system preventing it from draining him dry. Now... it didn't. He dove at Beowulf, thrusters firing, and his machine began glowing. "Let's go, Beowulf! Code... Kirin!" The forearm blades began shifting, lengthening, and glowing, as Soulgain drained him.

Beowulf looked up, shifting slightly. Its hulking shoulder suddenly snapped open. ... Normally, that contained a set of short-range mines, and it seemed like it still did. It just normally wasn't mounted on a hinge that looked like a _jaw_, surrounded by _teeth_, with fluid dripping from it that looked far too much like saliva for anyone's comfort. Beowulf barely shook as the small bomblets fired up at Soulgain.

The spread was too wide, he couldn't evade them... so he flew straight through, accepting whatever damage they did to Soulgain. Almost a quarter of the left side was blown off, the left half of the head was consumed in the impacts, alarms ringing... but he was through the barrage, and whipped Soulgain's forearm blades through Beowulf's machine even as he came down to the ground, tearing a large track over the center of the chest, revealing a yellow sphere as carapace fell away.

Axel had no idea what that sphere was, but it looked large and important. He was shifting to hit it when Beowulf's arm came up, and sent Soulgain flying back with a crushing blow.

Some quick thruster bursts, and while his fall wasn't really _controlled_, the large blue machine at least rolled and skidded and bounced in a crumpled heap roughly where Axel wanted it to go. In the center of the four monoliths.

Axel chuckled, slowly coaxing his machine to its feet as Beowulf stomped towards him. No way he'd manage much more of a fight... the full drain had sucked him to the point he just wanted to go to bed. "... Look at the state I'm in... You blew the hell out of me." He glanced at the display. "But..." The monoliths began to glow blue, surrounding him, bathing him in their light. "I _win_." The Lykeios dome built around him, but didn't expand any further. It didn't really need to, nor did it have enough charge to do it. "I said I was saying goodbye to this world. You... you can just lie there and scream until Lykeios self-destructs."

Oh yes. Axel could hear his growl building up now. He was _pissed_. "_Axel... ALMER!_" Beowulf's Mark III monster charged towards him, immense strides eating up the ground as he went, tearing divots in the flooring... And presenting a much easier target than otherwise. Beowulf had had Axel all pissed off and not thinking clearly for years... it was impossible to iterate how good it was to return the favour.

"While I'm at it..." Axel let Soulgain draw a bit more from him. The right arm began cycling, the blade spinning around on it. "Have something to remember me by!" He stretched out into a punch, and the forearm detached, launching for Beowulf, and ripping his machine's left arm off, stopping him cold.

_Well... if it's stupid and it works, it ain't stupid. Colour me sold. Gonna need a new arm though... and a new everything else._ "Farewell, Beowulf. I won't be seeing you in the other world."

The world vanished around him. The last thing he heard was Beowulf's enraged roar. Goddamn music to his ears. Five seconds to go, then the self-detonation should turn TLI into a new Colorado crater.

Shadow Mirror was an organization that believed 'overkill' wasn't even a real word.

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Author's Notes:

First thing's first - thanks go out to prereaders - the list being Sunshine Temple, DCG, Ellf, and Belgarion213.

For those that don't recognize the crossover... I shall endeavour to make sure you're not left behind. There were probably enough hints planted in the crossover scenes that you can figure out roughly what's going to happen.

For those that _do_ recognize the crossover... yes, I did.

This prologue is basically all setup. The actual cross will happen in the actual chapter... and after that, things will be so far off-kilter, I shouldn't have to run any more 'novelizations of the episodes'. (I thank you all very much for bearing with that, and apologize, I need to run over what's already happened in the show so the people who haven't just been marathoning Stargate remember just what's happening at this point. I hope my iteration was at least moderately entertaining, and there _is_ original material in the next chapter and on from there.)

As always, reviews, comments, corrections, and etcetera are appreciated whether for good or ill, and my email's always open (PaleWLF gmail com).

(To clarify since I expect to hear this a lot: The use of 'gould' when some US personnel are talking isn't actually a typo - for more or less the whole show, most of the Americans pronounce it like that.)


	2. Chapter 01: Chaos

Disclaimer: No copyright is mine, thus no copyrighted character is. If you recognize them from something that's not written by 'Pale Wolf', I have no legal claim to them. I still don't own some parts of the first chunk of this chapter, either.

The Shadow on the Other Side of the Mirror

By Pale Wolf

Chapter One

Chaos

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

General George S Hammond ran through the hall. The distance between his office and the command center hadn't seemed quite so much a problem when it wasn't a crisis situation that required him to shuttle between the two at a dead run. Those years of desk jobs were really starting to make him regret not keeping in better shape.

The figure he saw just before he passed through the briefing room soured his mood a little further. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Lieutenant-Colonel Bert Samuels turned around. Gussied up in full dress blues, hair slicked back as always. "Reporting for duty, sir. I'm to coordinate with the Pentagon."

Oh great, just what he needed... "By whose order?"

"The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs... at the request of Senator Kinsey? He... did try to contact you."

Hammond just shook his head. He'd heard nothing, and considering he'd just been at the phone in his office, they must not have tried very hard... "Maybe _you_ can tell me why our forces haven't gone on full alert? If we don't get our assets moving now, they're going to be caught on the ground."

Once Hammond was done, Samuels looked back up. "The current thinking at the Pentagon is to do nothing that would alert the goa'uld that we know they're there."

... That could not be serious. "Let me guess whose bright idea _that_ was."

"General Hammond. May I speak freely?" Without waiting for any actual response from George, Samuels continued. "I know I seem to have lost your respect, sir, for whatever reason..."

George's face twitched. This man had recommended the vivisection of the first alien to join them. And of a good officer under his command. If Samuels couldn't tell why Hammond could only barely tolerate him...

"... But we wouldn't be in this situation - that is, at the brink of war with the goa'uld - if you had heeded my advice, and buried the Stargate in the first place."

George raised an eyebrow. "... Was that an 'I told you so', Colonel Samuels?"

"I'm not here to point fingers, sir. I'm here to help coordinate our preemptive strike against the goa'uld ships." He stepped back, leaning against the corridor wall. "That's if the President approves - Joint Chiefs are briefing him now."

"And with what do you intend to strike?" If he was keeping their forces locked on the ground, there was no way they could get ASATs up there...

"A new weapon, sir. I've helped to oversee its development at Area 51 with Colonel Maybourne. Two prototypes are being prepared for launch at Vandenberg Air Force Base as we speak." He shrugged. "If all goes well, history shall mark this day with two brilliant and unexplained flashes that occurred in the night sky. The world should never know how close we came to Armageddon." He turned, walking into the briefing room.

Hammond just shook his head, following. The last wonder-weapon that would supposedly be a silver bullet for all problems was the F-4 Phantom that his wingman had been shot down in back in Vietnam... By decade-older, theoretically obsolete fighters.

His expression soured a little further when he saw the array of generals already in the briefing room. It was nice how Samuels had asked before commandeering George's facility for his plan. Hammond took up a spot at the back, standing.

Samuels stepped to the front of the room. "I'm sorry for the wait, sirs. There were a few issues, and we're short on time as it is, so I'll get right into this... The goa'uld's unexplained delay is, fortunately, buying us the necessary time to prepare. We'll launch a strike as soon as they enter orbit."

Hammond had to ask... and frankly, Samuels probably wanted a chance to explain how clever he thought he was anyway. "What makes this weapon of yours so special?"

Samuels smiled. Yes, George still had the measure of the man. He gestured to a computer monitor. "An otherwise ordinary W-78 nuclear warhead has been enriched, with a sample of the alien material - naquadah. The sample that SG-5 found and brought back a few months ago, in fact. The warheads should now yield in excess of one thousand megatons - each." Eyebrows raised across the room, it seemed at least a few of those officers were quite interested. "We call them our goa'uld busters."

Samuels grinned. "Our plan is to launch two rockets simultaneously into retrograde orbit." He keyed up a pretty visual display of the intended attack course, letting it play on the monitor as he spoke. "Now... the Mark 12G strike carriers for the warhead are made of stealth material, and shaped to reduce visibility. And, should go undetected by their radar."

"Assuming the gould have anything even remotely _like_ radar." Hammond was reminded of how almost every Russian fighter since the eighties mounted infra-red sensors, near to impossible to stealth against. God knew what insane science fiction scanning technology the goa'uld used.

Samuels paused, meeting his eyes for once. "... It's our best shot, sir. And I'm sure the President agrees. Or he wouldn't have initiated countdown."

Hammond just shook his head. He didn't disagree that it was worth trying... He just didn't think they shouldn't even be preparing even one of the backup plans as they banked on a single prototype weapon that may not even go off.

"Currently, we stand at T minus... three hours. We'll hold at two minutes, while the goa'uld come within range." He stepped up to Hammond, shrugging. "... It's going to work, sir. The goa'uld should be taken completely off-guard."

'Should' had no damn place in Earth's one and only battle plan to avert extinction. If Samuels was looking for approval from his former commanding officer, he wasn't going to get it. "If you're wrong, every country on Earth will be caught off-guard. If it were up to me, I'd strongly recommend warning-"

"With respect, sir... It's not up to you."

Hammond nodded. "Clearly. I will have my protest of this course of action go on record."

"... Sir, when it works, it won't look good on your-"

"If it works, I'll gladly take the black mark on my record. If it doesn't, we'll all have bigger problems."

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Colonel Vindel Mauser strode up into the bridge. Most of the staff just continued working at their consoles arrayed around the front as the commander stepped on deck. He might have smiled at the professionalism if he hadn't had a reputation to maintain.

One did step up to greet him, however - a slim eighteen-year-old asian girl, with short, dark hair. "Colonel."

He glanced around the bridge, noting a few mildly sparking consoles, and blood on some of the crewmen, floating in the air. "What's our status, Marita?"

"The bridge crew is putting things together now... we took fairly significant damage in the transition. Still no sign of the other ships... it's possible we lost them."

Vindel frowned. "... We're ripping holes in the fabric of space and time. They may be further out, or they may arrive in a week. I'm not prepared to write a million people off ten minutes after we get here. Where's Commander Cherenkov?"

Marita shook her head, moving up with him to the command console. "Almost everyone took injuries, sir. Commander Cherenkov and a few others were serious enough we had to move them to the infirmary. I'm taking over helm for now."

He glanced down at her with a raised eyebrow. "Bit of a waste of your talents, Marita?"

"Where they're needed is where they're best put to use, sir."

Vindel shook his head. She never was going to relax around him, was she? "All right. I'll take over for the Captain for now."

She nodded, turning the Captain's chair for him.

He sat down. "I appreciate the gesture, Marita, but you don't have to do the little things for me." He turned the chair, buckling in. He could walk in zero gravity thanks to magnetic boots, but he'd really rather not go flying around, especially not if maneuvering became necessary.

"But you appreciate the gesture, sir."

Vindel rubbed his temples, and tapped the control keys on the display. Hm. Two of Shangri-La's reactors were down. Repair team... O'Neill and Walther. Well, those two would have the things in working order inside of the day. Some broken gun emplacements as well. "All right, what's our comm status?"

"Possibly the only thing that isn't a little broken, sir. We've sent out Flash. No response from Lykeios-0, 1, or 2, or from Annwn, Mahoroba, or El Dorado. We've got a Flash from W-14, though." She reached over his shoulder, tapping a few controls to bring up the comm log.

Of course, it was just a text message. Flash burst transmissions weren't very data-dense, but combined with Shadow Mirror's powerful encryptions, they were about as secure as was possible - in part _because_ they were so short. He began reading it. "How did we end up in orbit? We were underground when we left."

Marita licked her lips, a bit nervously. "... I think we arrived in the wrong world, sir. We'd have to have one of the scientists check the System XN logs to confirm, but..."

"I noted the distinct lack of space colonies, yes. Lower-volume comm traffic as well. We can wait on the log check, Lemon's still missing and O'Neill and Walther have more immediate concerns."

"... That comm traffic, sir..."

He raised an eyebrow on getting to a point in W-14's report. "Indicates it's 1998 AD? I don't believe I've missed this badly since I was first in training." He glanced up at her, noticing her furrowed brow. She was trying to think of something true to say that would counter the self-criticism, wasn't she? "It was a joke, Marita."

"... Oh." She flushed slightly, looking down. Very cute kid. She was going to be a heartbreaker, if she ever bothered. He hoped she did, there was more to life than Shadow Mirror.

It was a joke, but Vindel had to note it was kind of true. He'd left from Colorado in 191 SE, and arrived in orbit in 1998 AD... He blinked. "... It seems we've arrived in a rather different chain of events. There was no alien attack in 1998 in our history. The ships are... hovering in orbit? Why hasn't it come to a fight yet?"

Marita nodded. "We were lucky, it seems we arrived on the opposite side of the planet from them. It is likely blocking their scans. I took the liberty of moving us into a synchronous orbit, we won't drift out from cover without applying further thrust. Locals haven't spotted us either, the stealth is holding up."

"Good work." He tapped his cheek. "... Now why haven't the _locals_ fired a shot yet?"

"According to W-14's Flash, they're trying to keep the alien presence secret."

Vindel smashed his forehead into his palm. "A hundred and fifty years apart, and they do the same damned foolishness... Please tell me they at least aren't negotiating Earth's surrender. Again." If 'again' was even an appropriate word in this context... The English language wasn't really set up to deal with multiple universes.

"They aren't negotiating Earth's surrender, sir."

He glanced up at her. "That was actual fact, correct? Not just trying to comfort me?"

Small smile across her face. "Yes sir, it's actual fact. They seem to believe these aliens simply want to destroy them. They're apparently planning a sneak attack once these 'goa'uld' come in range."

"... _Will_ they come in range? I'd just drop an asteroid if I wanted to bombard and didn't want survivors."

"Fortunately, sir, they haven't done so. Earthside command - specifically, the United States, we don't have much information about the other nations yet - isn't sure why they haven't acted yet, either."

Vindel raised an eyebrow. "How _did_ Lemon's dolls get this much secretive information so quickly?"

"It seems W-14 and W-16 have been here for a few months, sir. They went to some known secret facilities of the time and have been exchanging basic information... We're basically set up, with fairly minimal committments."

"The locals don't know in general, right?"

"No sir, the man they're working with appears to be trying to use them - us - as his own ace in the hole."

Vindel chuckled. "It's good to see government black bag spooks never change. Well, horrible, really, but useful in this context."

"What do you want us to do, sir?"

He rubbed his chin. "For now, we'll focus on repairs. Get the hangar doors working, and those dud reactors. We've got time for now. Beyond that, we'll wait and see what happens. If the locals pull it off, there'll be no need to show our hand."

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Bra'tac was turning out to be pretty useful, Daniel Jackson decided, as their new jaf'fa allies hauled the captured submachine guns out of the shipping crates. Not to mention having let them out of their cell, and brought them to the cargo room to equip. Daniel looked around the room. So many writings... he'd honestly like to take the chance to translate them at some point, but the fact that this ship was moving to wipe out Earth was a _bit_ more pressing.

"Here are your weapons. You will need them." The old man pushed the weapons across the stacked crates, to O'Neill.

O'Neill glanced at the rest of the team as they were putting the various pieces of equipment - radios and survival knives and Daniel-didn't-even-want-to-think-of-what-else - into its proper places on their vests. Then back to Bra'tac. "Um, Bra'tac? You mentioned something about 'saving the world'? Care to elaborate on that?"

The elderly jaf'fa shook his head. "By assaulting Klorel, you have made that impossible."

Daniel blinked. "Why?"

Bra'tac sighed. "Among the goa'uld, a pharaoh's power is more often challenged by their sons, than by their enemies. Once we had joined battle with your world, I was prepared to lead my wing against Apophis. In Klorel's name."

Teal'c glanced at Bra'tac with a small smirk. "Apophis would assume your attack was ordered by Klorel, and reciprocate... A daring plan."

"I had hoped to drive a stake of mistrust between them. Now... I fear they will bond, against their common enemy."

"What _bond_? Klorel's dead."

Daniel winced, glancing at O'Neill in mute apology. They'd started in the SGC to save Skaara and Sha're, and now Skaara was gone, because Daniel had been careless enough to get caught...

"He will rise again."

"... The sarcophagus." Daniel... could not believe he hadn't thought of that.

"... Wait a minute. You put him in that thing, to bring him back?" O'Neill sounded angry... Daniel suspected he was less angry at Bra'tac, and more at himself for not considering it. Of course, at the time they could do it, it really wouldn't have been a good idea...

Bra'tac nodded. "I knew it would delay their attack until he arose."

Daniel glanced at his watch. It certainly had, at that... twenty-three hours had passed while they were unconscious from the goa'uld shock grenade and then getting let out of prison and brought to equip, and the world wasn't razed yet.

"Perhaps, when the warships of your world attack, we'll be able-"

"Ah-ah-ah... Excuse me." Carter interrupted, picking up her submachine gun. "Did you say the ships of _our_ world?"

"... Surely you have such vessels."

O'Neill looked back at Daniel.

Daniel looked at O'Neill. "... Well, we have a number of... of..."

"Shuttles," they chorused, both grinning nervously.

"These... shuttles? They are a formidable craft?" Bra'tac had to ask.

"Oh yeah... yeah," O'Neill muttered, turning away. "... bad day..."

Daniel's jaw worked as he tried to think of something to say... but yeah. Bra'tac's plan was dependent on a _bit_ more firepower than Earth could pump out... They were screwed.

Bra'tac could obviously read his expression, and frowned. The floor shook under them. Bra'tac stepped up to Teal'c.

He didn't need to say anything, though, Teal'c knew. "We accelerate. Klorel has risen."

Bra'tac nodded. "Then the campaign has begun. Once we launch, we will do what damage we can."

O'Neill looked up at the cluster of jaf'fa. "How many in your wing?"

He indicated himself, and the other two jaf'fa behind him. Daniel presumed they were rebels as he was, though they seemed content to allow Bra'tac to do the talking. "Three."

"... Three?"

Bra'tac looked at Teal'c. "Teal'c makes four."

O'Neill nodded agreeably. "Oh, well, _four_."

Bra'tac seemed a bit offended. "I have trained these warriors since they were cha'tik. They have sworn their lives to me." He shook his head. "It is no simple thing to ask."

"And we appreciate it, believe me. But _what are the odds_ of taking out a ship like this with four gliders, and... maybe... a shuttle?"

Teal'c shook his head, meeting O'Neill's eyes. "A goa'uld attack vessel is heavily armed. Shielded, and capable of launching a legion of gliders against us. I would say... slim."

"Okay. Call me a pessimist? But I think it's time for a new plan."

Bra'tac almost growled. "We offer to lay down our lives for your world, _human_. You cannot ask more."

"No. I can't. But I think a better idea is to get the other guys to lay down their lives, for _their_ world first, hm?"

Daniel glanced at Jack, trying to refrain from a chuckle. It would kind of ruin the intended effect if they realized O'Neill was borrowing lines from a movie about Patton.

The jaf'fa traded looks.

O'Neill turned to face Carter. "How long before the C-4 goes?"

She checked her watch. "Fourty-one minutes, sir."

He nodded, turning back to the jaf'fa. "Okay. With any luck at all, this ship is gonna blow within the hour. It might be a good idea for us to get to the other one. Can you do that?"

Bra'tac looked off to the side, thinking for a moment... and when he met O'Neill's gaze, he was beginning to smile.

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

"That's it! They're in a geosynchronous orbit over the United States. Lock in that attack profile. And advise the President, we are go for launch." Bert Samuels hung up the phone, watching the monitors. This plan was his baby, and he wanted to see it through.

There were only thirty seconds left on the countdown, so the launch was soon enough. Two slim Minuteman ICBMs, one after the other, began to climb away on the plumes from their powerful rocket motors.

Sergeant Walter Harriman worked at the telemetry, and paused for a moment to listen on his communicator. "Vandenburg reports a good launch."

Bert grinned, pumping a fist. "_Yes_!" They were going to make it. He looked up to the side, and wilted slightly under Hammond's disapproving look. "... I'm sorry, sir. For what it's worth, I _seriously_ doubt SG-1 is aboard those alien ships."

Hammond just turned to watch the tracking display.

"Weapons should reach the targets in... four minutes," Harriman reported.

Hammond nodded, glancing out the control center window - into the gate room, where another group was busily loading up. "In the meantime, let's keep moving these people through to the Alpha Site."

Walter reached for an intercom phone. "Group Nine, prepare to disembark."

Bert frowned, eyeing Hammond. "Sir... we might as well wait and see the result of our strike, before moving more people through."

"I don't think so."

"Sir, evacuation may be unnecessary." It'd be nice to be allotted a little faith.

"From your mouth to God's ears, Colonel. But I'm not hanging lives on the hope of a best-case scenario."

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

For maneuvers this fine, a keyboard was required. There was a joystick, of course, and she certainly intended to switch to it if they ended up engaging.

Marita Grace carefully maneuvered the immense Trilobite-class battlecarrier, dropping altitude and allowing centrifugal force to pull them around the planet. Not all the way to the alien vessels, of course... just enough to give them a view as the USAF missiles approached. As Colonel Mauser had requested.

Colonel Mauser, for his part, was strapped into the captain's chair, looking at the available telemetry. "Have they spotted us?"

Marita looked at the screen, and shook her head. "... I don't know, sir. They're not reacting to our presence."

He nodded, cupping his chin. "Standing and not even calling us would be damned arrogant... I'd think at least sheer size would catch their attention."

"Radar and thermal stealth may be holding, sir. Or the ASRS."

"I don't plan to bank on it, and we can't hold it for more than a few hours anyway. Stand ready to bring up the shield and commence maneuvering if they take hostile action."

"Sir!" chorused all the staff on the bridge.

"All right... what's the status of the American missiles?"

"Nothing on radar, strong thermal signature. About one minute to impact." Marita's cheeks reddened, and she glanced at Sergeant Mansfield. Sensors was his job, she shouldn't have been... even if the control stations were interchangeable. He glanced back at her, winking before returning to his duties.

Colonel Mauser nodded. "Well, let's hope they pull it off. Just the same..." She could see him tap a comm control. "What's our repair status, O'Neill?"

Lieutenant Claire O'Neill's voice came over the bridge comm. "Not the best, bossman. Most of it's battened down, but reactor #13 is going all buggy again. Alex is taking a swim in the reactor to inspect it, and I'm pretty sure he'd appreciate it if you didn't turn it on while he was in there."

"I'll try. Very well, you've already set up the bypass?"

"Yup. I can cut it out and flare up Lucky as soon as we've got it fixed."

"It's unfortunate you're going to miss the fight."

"Eh, we're fighting... okay, we're fighting with blowtorch and wrench instead of gun and knife, but you get the idea. Maybe. Sort of."

"I'm not entirely sure _you_ do, O'Neill."

"We'll keep, bossman, just don't keep us out of the next firefight! We're missing two in a row here!" She closed the comm channel.

Colonel Mauser chuckled, shaking his head. "All right, what's the status of their attack?"

Sergeant Mansfield glanced at Marita with a smirk. She went a little redder, shaking her head. "Estimated impact time in five. No maneuvering or countermeasures yet observed. And three."

The bridge went silent, everyone leaning forward to watch their displays.

The missiles slowly, inexorably approached...

And impact.

Mansfield whistled. "We've got defensive field showing on sensors. Those missiles were a gigaton, but I see no penetration."

Colonel Mauser seemed as composed as ever to casual inspection, but Marita could read how shaken he sounded. "A gigaton? That strikes me as rather beyond the twentieth century, on warheads of that size."

Marita looked back at him. "... It's possible they picked up some alien technology..."

Colonel Mauser nodded, frowning. "... Well, they don't have enough of it, W-14's Flash was quite clear that this was the only attack they had in mind with this technology. And with that electromagnetic pulse, they won't be able to organize any other forces. Or evacuate anyone beyond a handful of elites, for that matter."

"... Defensive fields tend to perform worse against lesser, sustained strikes than against singular powerful ones," Marita offered.

Colonel Mauser rubbed his temples. "Well. It's the only planet we have. Marita, begin bringing us around, slow ahead. Forrest, ready to bring up shields. Takeba, do a final confirmation of weapons readiness. And Mansfield, open up communications, as many frequencies as you can cover simultaneously, on my order. We'll see if we can't bluff them. And I'd rather confirm that they actually _are_ enemies first, I don't really trust that source of ours yet."

"Sir!"

Marita began slowly shifting the Trilobite's course. Just enough to bring it forward, cruising calmly towards the strange, pyramid-shaped alien craft.

Colonel Mauser activated the shipwide intercom. "Shadow Mirror, I regret to inform you all that Earth's defence has failed. The armies on the surface, formidable though they may be, do not have the lift capacity to get up here and fight. We are the only thing between this world and the whims of this alien threat."

He sighed. "... This is not our world. Ours is lost to us, for now. However... this is Earth. And Shadow Mirror has always, and will forever, stand for one thing. Earth. Free. Just. And safe, for all time."

He stood up from his seat. "And every other world along with it! I know you are disheartened. We have just walked away from a defeat. Thousands of our comrades are yet unaccounted for. But we can carry on, in their name."

He took a deep, relaxing breath. "I'm going to ask you all to stand up, once more, even as wounded as we all are. Earth will never be safe as long as it does not have the will to **fight** whosoever would dare to challenge it. We are the ones who wished for eternal chaos, Shadow Mirror! A war, without end, on all those who would dare to harm the helpless! In an infinity of worlds, we will always find a home. And I do not wish to see even one such place destroyed."

He sighed once more, taking a seat again. "... But alone, I have only my one machine. To see that wish through, I will need you. Your peerless power, skill, and courage. I cannot force you into this. I can only ask. Will you help me?"

The roar of approval felt as though it shook the ship. That was impossible, but...

Colonel Mauser smiled. "... This enemy is an unknown, and we are outnumbered. I'm sorry for that. If I knew any way to correct that, I would have used it. But what I do know is that no matter what technology aliens bring to the table, there is **nobody** who does war better than humans. And no soldiers better than Shadow Mirror. We're in a bad situation right now. Every man we lose is irreplaceable, so I want you to be at your best out there. Use what you need to. But use it as well as I know you can. Stand ready."

He closed down the intercom, to applause from most of the bridge crew.

Marita didn't join in, but she smiled, looking up at him. ... Of course, there were reasons to fight other than the altruistic. For one, they didn't have any _other_ planets to resupply at. But Colonel Mauser had explained it to her once. There were many reasons to fight... but never tell a man the selfish ones. Imply them if necessary, but focus on the reasons for fighting that he can be _proud_ of.

Colonel Mauser waited for the short round of applause to finish, before he nodded. "Do it."

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

The rings descended behind Apophis. Shortly afterward, they deposited their passenger, and retreated into the roof.

He didn't turn, simply booming out: "Klorel, it is time. You will burn their first city to the ground."

There was a moment of silence... What was wrong? Did he not wish to destroy the people who had wounded him?

"Father... the host you have chosen for me is strong. I fear I may need more time in the sarcophagus to gain strength-"

"You are strong enough! You are my **son**!"

He was about to activate the rings to send Klorel back, when a deep male voice came over the communicator. Speaking an unknown language.

"Father... that is the language of the Tau'ri."

Apophis's eyebrow rose. Ah yes... Klorel's host was important to the Tau'ri in some way. It would not be out of the question that they had taught him their language. "What does he say?"

Klorel looked a little nervous as he stepped up. "... He says... that he does not care who we are. He wishes us to leave this system immediately."

More words came.

"... He also says that surrender would be acceptable."

A growl built up in the back of Apophis's throat, as he began checking his ha'tak's sensors. Where was this transmission coming from? The surface? "You may tell him, Klorel, that I am his god, Apophis, and that if he kneels before me, I may yet spare him for this insolence!" 'May' being the operative word. Apophis did not really expect to make that decision, and he truly could not see an outcome where this fool's wagging tongue would not be cut off and fed to the pigs.

Klorel spoke into the communicator, transmitting to... well, everywhere, as they had not yet located this fool. This language was too weak, and frail. Inelegant and ugly, just like everything else about the Tau'ri.

There was a sudden flare on the sensors. ... The transmission was not coming from the surface... but from the truly immense, over-a-kilometer-long starship that had just appeared on sensors. Passive only, the active sensors still couldn't see it. Like those missiles the Tau'ri had sent a few minutes ago.

Apophis paused, keying in a visual enhancement - while well within range of passive sensors, it was beyond visual range. That was larger than an Asgard ship... perhaps this fool thought he could back up his words. But it was primitive. He could detect no shields, no naquadah... and the shape was simplistic. A single long rectangle, with an arrowhead-shaped nose, and a hammer-like bulge at the tail end of the arrow, as if it were emulating the Asgard ships.

Apophis shook his head. His two ships, though a great deal smaller, should handily take care of this oversized toy. He was a bit glad of it, really. This campaign would have been rather unsatisfying if those missiles were all the Tau'ri had to throw at them.

The man continued to speak. Klorel blanched, glancing at his father.

Apophis raised an eyebrow. "Speak, Klorel. They are his words, not yours."

"... He says... 'If you meet a Buddha, kill the Buddha. If you meet a god, kill the god. Salvation is from within, anyone who offers it is trying to get in your way.' ... And... he reiterates that he still does not care who we are, Father."

Smaller craft began separating from the large vessel. A fair number of them.

"I granted him opportunity to repent of this foolishness, but still he persists. Very well! All death gliders and al'kesh, launch immediately! Klorel, have your jaf'fa take command of your vessel. I wish you to see this."

Klorel bowed his head. "Yes, Father." He stepped back.

Apophis did not wish for Klorel's jaf'fa to see him in this moment of weakness. The humans were like sharks. They could smell your blood in the water.

He laid his hands in the controls. It was time to teach his son, first-hand, how the gods did battle. First, to move closer...

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Lieutenant Luis Virgil casually pulled off Shangri-La's catapult, moving his RPT-007M Gespenst Mark II up, and into formation alongside Lester Hornst's Gespenst, and Maria Balthazar's borrowed RAM-004V Lion, joining the air wing fanning out in orbit. He'd have preferred to have Walther in that Lion, his whole team, but it wasn't as much a loss as it could normally be, Balthazar's Randgrid was rather near to useless out in space.

Luis glanced at his sensor board. He was one of the last ones out... blocky A-12 Sorpresa strike fighters, sharply-angled multi-wing F-32V Schwert aerospace superiourity fighters, the aerodynamic-almost-humanoid Lions, rounded humanoid Gespensts... A total around sixty units. And of course, the immense Trilobite behind them. A good force, though he'd like to be taking more for an 'Earth's last line of defence' mission. He'd like to have Arklight Blue out here as well, but Mauser was apparently holding the kid and his next-generation Ashsaber back as a trump card.

The opposition flowing out of the pyramid ships was unpleasant to behold. Well, actually they had some decent aesthetics (they certainly looked better than the Sorpresas and Randgrids), but it was unpleasant to see that many arrayed against them. Ninety-six bird-shaped fighters, and twenty-four much larger... he presumed bombers. Forming up into a long wall, blocking the path to the pyramids. And then accelerating... Fast little buggers. Now to see if they had some mass to go with that speed.

Vindel Mauser's voice came over the radio. "Everyone, keep in units. Sorpresas are to split into three groups and deal with those bombers - four Schwerts to protect each group. Lions and Gespensts, open fire, acquire targets as you are able, you are air superiourity for now. Primary objective is to keep the weight of the small craft off Shangri-La. We will move in to engage the pyramids. Shadow Mirrors, form up, and advance!"

Fusion-powered thrusters fired, shoving Luis back in his cockpit chair as he pulled three gees in a straight line.

Luis opened up the team communications. "Hornst, Balthazar. Queue up missiles, we'll open fire as soon as we've got lock. One missile per, just to feel 'em out. We're going right down the middle while they suck on that."

Hornst laughed. "Same as always?"

"Right..." The kid sounded quiet. He'd had her in his team a while yet, though... he knew it wasn't so much that she was scared as that she wanted to get cracking. She'd better not use that Lion's greater agility to get ahead of him and Hornst, he didn't want the formation all strung out.

The good thing about working with an organization as insane as Shadow Mirror was that they all thought the same way he did, even without communicating with each other. Every machine that _carried_ missiles fired them, as almost every single Shadow Mirror machine began to converge on the center of the enemy formation. Break them up first, then hunt them down and kill 'em.

They may have been outnumbered, but that was hardly new to them. They just had to be four times better to beat a force of this size. Easy.

A total of fifty units carried missiles, and each one fired a single MMM-12 'Split' at one of the oncoming birds, accelerating in right behind their curtain of missiles as the missiles dispensed their four sub-munitions.

The range shrank rapidly. Five kilometers became three almost in the time it took Luis to blink, and the missiles began to connect.

The maneuverability of those little eagles was, he'd reiterate, _damned_ impressive, the things were pulling three and a half gees in a straight line, and pulling turns that would knock a man out flat. But for all that... there was minimal comm traffic. No jamming at all. No chaff, no flares, no countermeasures of any kind. And the days missiles could be evaded by just pure maneuvering had ended back in the twenty-first century, and they hadn't come back with three-gee acceleration. An extra half-gee wasn't going to change that.

Not much armour, either. Virgil had been worried there'd be shields, but single submunitions seemed to nearly split them in half, as the missiles dove into the group. Half of the missiles fired took an eagle out... the other half, well, pure maneuvering couldn't be relied upon to evade missiles, but apparently that _much_ could give you a fighting chance. It wasn't the acceleration, it was the pilots, they seemed tough enough to pull much sharper maneuvers than one should. Their maneuvering was strangely sloppy, though.

With a quarter of the eagles blotted out in the first round, Luis spared a moment to regret not having fired off everything he had. If he'd known they worked so well, he'd have loved to end it all in one go, but now they were getting closer, where the Splits were less effective and it was all going to turn into a dogfight...

He brought up his MP-23, putting a hole through one of the eagles. No attempts at dodging before he fired, probably not aware an attack was coming, and after... well, there was no dodging relativistic particle beams _after_ they'd been fired.

The other Gespensts experienced a fair bit of success with their own particle beams. And to his left, Balthazar tapped the trigger of the railgun mounted on... really, the railgun that _comprised_ the Lion's left arm. Her first few rounds missed, but while the MP-23 fired a bit slow, the Lion's MRG-1 fired a hundred thin hypervelocity flechettes in about a second, she corrected her aim almost instantly, walking fire across her target and pretty nearly cutting it in half.

Finally, the eagles began opening fire... but it all went wide. The nearest shot - seemingly a thick orange bolt of some kind of energy, but way slower than the particle beams - came about five meters off a Sorpresa's stubby wing.

"Jeeze Louise," Hornst muttered. "It's like they don't even have targeting..."

"Maybe not," Balthazar muttered. "But I'm not going to complain because the bad guys are bad shots."

"At least we can't back away now, with their speed. It'd feel kinda unfair just stomping on them from out of their range."

"Hornst, the only unfair advantage is the one the _other_ side has," Luis snapped. "Let's get in there, they haven't broken formation yet." He accelerated his Gespenst, bringing the twin GF-400-3 reactors up to their full rated military thrust.

"That old adage? Seriously? Yessir." Hornst accelerated to catch up to him.

Balthazar put on a bit too much burst, and began to outpace him before she lightened up on the throttle to let her squadmates catch up.

And the Vigil squad dove in, at the head of the Shadow Mirror arrow. Right into the heart of the fighter formation, which was quickly consolidating towards the center to engage them.

The massive battlecarrier accelerated, dozens of kilometers behind them... slowly by the standards of this battle, but very, very fast in its own right. Beginning to glow as it diverted power to its own shields.

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Hammond leaned over Walter Harriman's shoulder, frowning. "... What the devil is going on up there?"

Walter shook his head, checking the radar display. "... I don't know, it looks like the motherships are launching fighters, but they're milling around in orbit for some reason..." He frowned, rewinding the display and playing it forward again. "No, wait, about a third of those fighters... just kind of appear several kilometers away from the motherships."

"Get me an image enhancement on their arrival point. I want to know where the hell they came from."

Walter nodded. "Processing now..."

Samuels looked up from his seat in the corner. The man looked a lot less neat and tidy than before his plan's spectacular failure. Quite demoralized, and Hammond's refusal to allow him to go off and run and hide on the Alpha Site after he'd screwed _this_ planet probably hadn't helped. "... probably more goa'uld dropping in out of hyperspace... Maybe they thought we weren't doomed enou-"

"... Whoa." Hammond and Samuels looked to Walter at that outburst, and he probably would have been embarassed by it, except both of them had caught sight of the display he was staring at, and also proceeded to stare, slack-jawed, at the long shape on the screen, that the oddly-shaped fighters could be seen launching off of. "... Image enhancement's in, sir." Just the low-level for now, but it was enough.

Hammond paused, taking a deep breath. "... How the devil did _that thing_ not show up on radar? It's the size of a city."

Walter swallowed. "It still doesn't, sir... maybe it's radar-stealthed."

"... That's impossible."

Hammond looked at Samuels strangely. "We just did it ten minutes ago, so can they."

Walter moved the image a little. It still wasn't fully enhanced, but... "Sir? You might want to take a look at this."

Hammond turned to look at the screen. "... They're charging at each other. Those are battle formations." It wasn't a hard guess to make, with the battle line the fighters off the motherships were making, and the arrowhead shape the mystery units formed, apparently trying to split through it.

Samuels snorted. "Great. A rival goa'uld's decided to challenge this one for the right to destroy us."

"That may be so, but as long as they're shooting at each other, they're not shooting at us. We need to make use of the time." Hammond turned to Walter. "Continue evacuating people to Alpha."

"Yes sir. I don't think the battle will last long enough to get our forces off the ground, though, sir."

Hammond shook his head. "You're right. Not with the EMP from the blasts. We're still helpless." Walter was very proud of his commanding officer for not casting a glare at Samuels when he said that. "Continue to gather data for now. I'll be informing the President of this new development."

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Del'rak was not a jaf'fa to feel fear. Even now, seeing the incredible range and precision of these monstrous Tau'ri weapons, the seeming ease with which they killed jaf'fa from five times the distance death glider cannons could be expected to hit, he still felt no fear.

He knew that with the blessings of Apophis, and the courage of jaf'fa who did not _need_ such petty tricks, they would be triumphant.

He had been in a dozen campaigns before, and would be in a dozen after this. It had always been the way, and it would always be.

And as the range reached a kilometer, the death gliders' fire began scoring hits, as did the gunner for Del'rak's al'kesh.

The hits were not as telling as Del'rak would have liked - just one of those solid humanoid machines was very well-armoured, taking four solid hits to finally bring down. But they were slower... the gliders would prevail.

Meanwhile, he had his own mission, jerking his al'kesh up and over a nearly solid wall of those brilliant red beams, and readjusting course... He would be past the bulk of their formation in a matter of seconds, and then his al'kesh would begin bombing that huge ship.

"I got one, Master Del'rak!" his gunner cried.

"Do not celebrate yet! There are dozens more!" Del'rak snapped back.

"I'm sorry, si-! Incoming fire from behind!"

Del'rak growled to himself, diving as four red beams tore through just a hair above. Shifting the display to show the enemies to the rear, he frowned... several of those humanoid machines had somehow flipped to face back at him in a mere instant. They were still moving away, but facing towards him. Then with sudden flares from their outstretched hands, they spun again, and accelerated upward in a group as a flurry of glider fire soared past underneath them.

He considered himself fortunate to have shifted his display to the rear, when he caught sight of a group of eight accelerating towards him. Four much sharper, more predatory-looking fighters to the rear, but the four in the front were small, stubby-winged little toys. Each of the stubby ones began firing a pair of those red-beamed cannons at him... single shots, they fired slower than staff cannons, but having seen death gliders torn asunder by them, their power and speed was plain to see.

He'd already realized that there was no hope of dodging such fast weapons after they had been fired. So he had steered to the side as rapidly as he could _before_ they fired. Two still tore a hole in the back of his al'kesh.

Del'rak gritted his teeth. The stubby fighters were slower than the rest, but they were still faster than his al'kesh. There would be no outrunning or outmaneuvering them...

He tilted his al'kesh's nose down, shutting off the thrusters. That would leave him cruising forward at his current speed... and give the paired staff cannon on the belly a clear field of fire to destroy them. He smacked his gunner in the shoulder. "Shoot them down!"

"Yes, Master Del'rak!" The younger jaf'fa beside him clamped down on the trigger, and began weaving the staff cannon after the fighters on their tail.

They maneuvered wildly, scattering away from the plasma bolts... but a single bolt did connect with one. It simply tore a groove down the machine's side. They returned fire with another brace of red.

Fortunately, Del'rak had tapped the thrusters when he saw them lining up to fire. Another two still exploited the holes in the back of his al'kesh, sending a shudder through the entire craft as armour plating exploded.

"I said _shoot them down_!"

The gunner's bolts had taken a loss in accuracy when he began moving, but when he let off the thrusters, the aim quickly adjusted, and a paired staff-blast connected with the fighter that had kept hitting him, tearing off its left wing.

Del'rak began wondering what magics these Tau'ri had when the one-winged fighter continued to fly - not as well as before, but still maneuvering very sharply.

But his faith in Apophis was rewarded, as simultaneously, all four pulled off to the right, followed a moment thereafter by the seemingly more agile fighters... he presumed they were escorts against the gliders.

Ven'tal's al'kesh, to the right, shuddered, as the younger jaf'fa began screaming over the communication network. It seemed they'd picked an easier target... one not quite so favoured by Apophis.

Del'rak accelerated. Apophis had granted him this opportunity to serve, and he would make full use of it.

The massive ship loomed ahead... and there were no obstructions. He tapped his communication device. "Bombardier, begin dropping our plasma charges."

He waited a moment... and the first set was away, pelting towards the arrowhead nose of the Tau'ri craft.

He dove, preferring not to find himself on a collision course this soon. Should Apophis will it, he would, but he could still live to serve his god.

But then, with shocking speed, the nose of the approaching battleship descended. His craft was more maneuverable... but there simply wasn't time anymore.

Del'rak's al'kesh, and plasma charges, nearly disintegrated against the massive ship's hull.

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

"Lowering nose now," Grace's voice came over the intercom.

"Ah crap," was the most eloquent response Alexander Walther could manage, curling up into a ball as the ship began diving.

Several gees of acceleration slammed him up into the top of the reactor chamber. Ooooh yeah, that was gonna bruise.

There was a light 'thump'. "Enemy bomber impact. Penetrated outer tesla screen, halted by second layer of armour. Threat neutralized. Tesla screen is back to full power in the region."

He cast a glare up as he heard Claire O'Neill giggling over the short-range tactical radio. "I'm not drawing those straws again, you damn psychodriver! Fair and even trade of the duties next time!" Especially with that loon flying.

"Unless I catch you when you're sleeeeepy again...~" she singsonged back down.

... Fuck. Yeah, she probably was going to catch him again, too. Damned engineering hours. He shook his head, and moved to the current 'bottom' of the (inactive) reactor chamber - it was actually the back wall, but since Shangri-La was accelerating forward at constant thrust, unsecured things fell 'back', which was near enough to gravity to work with.

At least he'd remembered to tie his glasses in place, if they fell off in this protective suit, he wasn't going to be seeing a damn thing beyond some really pretty blurs.

He slowly walked along the back, trying to get up to the bottom before Grace pulled another jerky maneuver and flung him into the wall again. He was pretty sure he'd spotted the problem before he got slammed into the ceiling. A problem, at least.

Claire came over the radio again. "Got something in there? The external rams are clear."

"I think so. Going to need to latch onto it if I want to do anything, though."

"Need any help? I want to go check the generators."

"Go ahead, I'll call if I need you."

Grace's voice came over the intercom again. "Port yaw in three... two..."

Alex rushed the last few steps, and immediately attached his grappling hook to the nearest solid component - and was glad of it a second later as the immense ship pulled two gees to the left, slamming him into the right wall.

Not as glad of it as he'd have _liked_ to be, but at least he wasn't going to have to travel down to the bottom the slow way again. As the acceleration dropped off, he immediately tapped the winch control switch on his waist, the cable pulling towards the bottom of the reactor. And the forward thrust was gone, so there was no more 'gravity' pulling either way.

Grace's voice over the intercom gave him a sudden burst of irritation, before he realized what she was saying. "Clockwise rotation in five... four..." The reactor was on the port side of the vessel, so it would generate a downwards g-force. It'd slam him, but it'd slam him where he was at least trying to go. "... one... now."

Alex braced his legs, trying to soften the landing, and while still getting pressed down by double his weight, shortened up the slack on his anchor cable as much as he could.

The upwards g-force when Grace stopped the clockwise rotation - directing an equal but opposite amount of force - _did_ shove him upwards, but thankfully he was better-anchored, so he just kind of drifted up a meter or two before coming to the end of the cable. Still gave him some new harness bruises when he came to the end of the cable, but he'd live.

And now... he reeled in the rest of the way, hunkering down over the bottom of the fusion reactor and looking down. "Yeah, it's definitely the bottom fuel injector, O'Neill."

"Have we got replacements for that?"

"Yeah, but not time. No need." He pulled out a pair of pliers, and, putting both arms and the entire strength of his... distinctly lacking in strength... frame into the effort, _bent_ the offending projection back into shape.

He'd want to do some real repairs or replacements soon enough, but that should get the spheromak working. If it fouled up, the reactor would simply stop causing fusion, so there wasn't any real danger to a kludge for now. Didn't have time for anything fancy in combat.

"Nice. We clear to run her up?"

"Not yet, I want to make sure my getting slammed around didn't breach the aerogel containment layer. And, you know, let me get out of the fusion reactor before turning it on."

"Oh right, that!" He could _hear_ her grin. "So, having fun yet?"

He paused, glancing into the mirrored surface of the bottom. Oh yeah. He was grinning.

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Teal'c stood outside the door to the pel'tak, waiting a moment as the rest of the group caught up.

It had actually been a fairly amusing trip, watching O'Neill and Master Bra'tac repeatedly trying to outdo each other... To be honest, he had been surprised when O'Neill kept up in every encounter, despite being all of a third of Bra'tac's age and experience.

The ship shuddered again, and tilted wildly for a moment as the inertial dampeners readjusted. Teal'c braced himself and did not stagger, though Daniel Jackson fell across the hallway and slammed into the opposite wall.

Teal'c stepped across to Daniel Jackson, lowering a hand to help pull the younger man up. "Are you uninjured, Daniel Jackson?"

He nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine... what the hell is going on?"

Teal'c glanced at the bridge. "It seems this ship is embattled." Things like this had been very much slowing their travel to the bridge...

O'Neill frowned. "Well, I guessed that much, but who? Apophis?"

"I do not know."

"This is a blessing in disguise," Bra'tac noted. "Few jaf'fa on the pel'tak will be paying attention to anything but the battle. Storming in will be simpler."

Samantha Carter blinked. "So, just walk in and shoot them in the back?"

"In essence. It is better than my original plan."

O'Neill nodded, checking his equipment. "I can do that..." He moved up to the right-side door, waiting against it, zat'nik'tel braced in both hands.

Teal'c stepped up to move in after O'Neill, followed by the rest of SG-1. Bra'tac and his other two students - Jal'rem and Far'sor - could handle the left entrance, switching to zat'nik'tels lest they destroy equipment that they still needed to get off this ha'tak.

O'Neill nodded to Bra'tac.

Bra'tac nodded in reply, and stepped around the corner, levelling his zat'nik'tel and opening fire as he strode in, followed by his students.

Teal'c found O'Neill's motion... strange. Rather than simply stepping out into the door, he smoothly flowed around the corner, squeezing off shots as he went. He'd seen it before, but he had never quite gotten around to asking what the purpose of that movement was.

Teal'c would have observed more, but the entire action took about six zat'nik'tel discharges and one and a half seconds. By the time he entered the room in O'Neill's wake, the four Serpent Guards in the room (two at the controls, and two guarding) were already writhing on the ground, and O'Neill, Bra'tac, Teal'c, and Far'sor each fired one more zat'nik'tel blast to finish them off. Klorel hadn't been there, it seemed.

As soon as Daniel Jackson - the back of the group, carrying two of the Tau'ri weapons to serve as rear guard - was inside, O'Neill twisted the controls to shut the right side door, and overloaded it with his zat'nik'tel. "That'll hold them, right?"

Teal'c nodded as Bra'tac moved up to the controls. "Not as long as previously, but as long as we require." Jal'rem overloaded the left door, locking them in.

The ship shuddered once more, and all seven turned to look out the window. And blinked, more or less in unison.

A truly gigantic ship was visible, its top facing Klorel's ha'tak, arrowhead nose pointing off to the right. Exchanging massive flurries and volumes of fire with both ha'tak... Well, now that they'd killed the crew of Klorel's, only Apophis continued to fire, alongside them.

It seemed to casually absorb Apophis's heavy staff cannon on a strange glowing shield that seemed bonded tightly to its outer hull. What penetrated the shield simply slagged off the armour.

And then it returned fire, with an absolutely astounding amount of weapon stations. A strange mix, red energy beams slamming into Klorel's ha'tak, followed up shortly by what appeared to be primitive... but powerful... projectile weapons, as the Tau'ri used. A mixed volley of at least twenty independent shots tore into the shield surrounding Klorel's ship, and the orange light paled.

There were fighters embattled between the ha'tak and the strange ship. Death gliders and al'kesh, versus... strange, oddly-shaped craft. The strange craft were outnumbered, but that numerical advantage was shrinking rapidly. And even more so as a wing of four death gliders, having escaped the dogfight and slipped past, approached the massive ship, and were cut to ribbons by streams of fire from the ship's surface when they were still a kilometer out.

Bra'tac was the first to find words. "... I thought you implied your shuttles were _not_ a formidable craft."

Teal'c slowly shook his head. That... was not a shuttle. Or anything he'd ever heard of in his time on Earth. Or with the goa'uld... He had _never_ seen them face an opponent who could provide credible opposition in a space battle... let alone one that seemed to be _winning_.

O'Neill blinked, looking at Bra'tac. "... That's not another gould ship?"

"... I have never seen its like before. Or even heard of such."

O'Neill nodded, staring out the window. "... I want one."

Daniel Jackson coughed. "... No comment."

There was another long moment of staring.

Samantha Carter cleared her throat. "Um, not to interrupt, but between them shooting at us and the charges going off in two minutes, maybe we should, um, leave?"

"Yes," O'Neill agreed. "Leaving good. Exploding bad."

Bra'tac nodded sharply, leaning forward and going back to work on the controls. "I had hoped to direct Klorel's ship close enough and then disable the shield generators of Apophis to destroy both in one blow, but we took too long to arrive. There won't be enough time, we shall have to find another way to deal with Apophis." He moved to the back of the pel'tak. "Come."

The group clustered around him, weapons up. They would be going through fighting... Klorel would have made a useful hostage, but that was infeasible when he was not there.

The light shone down from above, and with their characteristic whine, the rings descended.

The world shifted, and the rings ascended once more.

Teal'c immediately located Apophis, who was facing away from them and focusing on the control panel, and fired. The zat'nik'tel blasts simply fizzled off against the cylindrical personal shield he must have activated, though.

O'Neill's burst of fire took down one of the Serpent Guard who had begun bringing staff weapons around to face them, as SG-1 and the jaf'fa began running for the door.

A combined burst from Far'sor and Jal'rem brought down another Guard, and Samantha Carter unleashed a long burst from her Tau'ri 'submachine gun', killing the third guard, tracking bullets across Klorel as well, though they were simply deflected off his shield.

Apophis whirled around. "Bra'tac! How DARE you betray me?" He was not actually being slow to notice, they had only been on the pel'tak for a few seconds.

Had he the time or the breath, Bra'tac would likely have made his declaration of intent against Apophis somewhat more eloquent than simply firing his staff weapon and killing the last guard before he moved for the door.

As Klorel ducked to pick up one of the staff weapons from the dead Serpent Guard, Teal'c _ran_ for the door. They didn't have anything ready to penetrate the shields, and with no Nox about, they were not going to be resurrected if they died to a shielded goa'uld _again_.

A moment of fear... would Klorel bring the staff weapon up before he made it out?

And then he was through the door, barreling into the wall beyond it. Just a single step to the side and he'd make it to cover...

Then he heard the distinctive hiss of a staff weapon. The cry of pain was not his own, though, and as he turned and shifted away from the line of fire, he realized Daniel Jackson had stepped in front of the blow, beginning to fall. Teal'c caught him under the arms and dragged him away.

And O'Neill and Bra'tac cut off pursuit as they simultaneously shut the doors, and scrambled the controls with zat'nik'tel discharges.

O'Neill turned to Daniel. "... Dammit..."

"Just leave me behind! I'll just slow you down!" He hissed in pain. His right shoulder looked like a mass of burnt meat.

"Not an option, Daniel!"

Daniel Jackson jerkily shook his head. "We're all going to die when this ship blows anyway! Leave me!"

"You will die as you have fought, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c stated, shifting the limp archaeologist and hefting him up on his back. "Alongside us."

"Bu-"

"Ah!" O'Neill interrupted with an upraised finger. "Shut up and save your strength, you talk too much all the time."

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Apophis looked proudly on his son as the younger goa'uld attempted to batter his way through the sealed doors. His ferocity had recovered admirably. "Leave it, my son." He turned his attention back to the battle, frowning. This was not going anywhere near as easily as it should.

"But, Father-"

"**Leave** it! We have larger concerns. And two thousand jaf'fa aboard this vessel. Task them. I require you to operate the weapons."

Klorel nodded, realization dawning. "... Of course, Father."

Apophis, for his part, was watching the battle with a growing sense of irritation. Active sensor scans weren't working... he simply had no way of knowing how much he was hurting the large ship, if at all. And with Klorel's ha'tak crew apparently dead, his anti-ship firepower was more or less cut in half - and the two ha'tak together had not been doing enough damage to be sure of.

The fighter battle... he could not expect any support from that sector, his jaf'fa were showing themselves to be singularly useless, their number rapidly shrinking faster with every passing moment. The more accurate weapons used by the enemy humanoids had consistently dominated the battle. Despite their inferior acceleration, they showed rather spectacular bursts of agility, and were much tougher to kill even when hit than they should be.

And there was something... else, about the way they fought. Something he couldn't define, or explain. The differences in performance were, if anything, the smaller factor - he had paid some manner of attention to the battle, and had consistently seen that even the superiour mobility of the death gliders wasn't playing in as much as it should have.

There was a sample of it right now in front of him, and he zoomed in the visual to watch - a death glider was settling in behind one of the moulded humanoid forms, and trying to shoot it as it skipped from side to side, spun madly, and generally made itself difficult to hit. He watched it weave to the side, moving towards another such machine that was also being followed.

They turned towards one another... and then faced one another. The first death glider stood in front of the second humanoid, and the second death glider was in the first humanoid's line of fire. And their own red-beam shots, destroying the death gliders, were much quicker than the gliders had had it.

As if to rub it in, as the two passed one another, the left hands of their machines reached out, catching and gripping together, and the pair spun around one another for a moment before angling away together. That particular team had already done this exact same trick three times. And that was just one sample of what they _continued_ doing to his forces, it was hardly their only trick.

The Tau'ri should not have been capable of this. The Tau'ri _were not_ capable of this. The skill... that, he would credit. Certainly after the mockery the Tau'ri soldiers had made of his jaf'fa time and again, most recently in - admittedly with the help of the traitor Bra'tac - fighting their way through Klorel's ha'tak and over to his. They were surpassingly skilled at warfare, and he would be glad of it when they were either bowing before him, or dead to plague him no longer.

But he'd sent a cloaked tel'tak ahead to scout in preparation for his campaign. They _did not have_ battleships such as this.

Apophis was not stupid. He was quite aware that if it could hide from him, well within sensor range and yet completely unseen, it could just as well hide from his scout ship. But they did not have facilities to _build_ such vessels. There had been excitement built up in their media transmissions (a waste in and of themselves, to an unheard-of degree) about a pitifully primitive 'shuttle', barely the size of an al'kesh, even _getting_ into orbit, let alone actually doing anything interesting while up there - it apparently had a launch planned today.

He frowned. ... Perhaps the slight hammerhead flare at the end of the front section wasn't a nod to Asgard design, but an _indicator_ of Asgard design. It was larger than an Asgard ship, and nowhere near the performance he'd always observed from them, but it could, perhaps, be a gift. A cheaper, easier to manufacture vessel to give the lesser races a defence. That would fit in with the habits of the Asgard... He would have to look into the possibility later. They had been remarkably quiet lately.

As Klorel fired the ha'tak's brace of staff cannons (or at least the thirty aiming in that direction, the other half of the ship's armament faced off uselessly to the opposite side, and would no matter which way the ha'tak faced), the enemy craft returned fire with _one hundred_ cannon blasts, somewhat over half of them those beam weapons, the other half simplistic cannons... Simplistic though they may be, they were still powerful, and this one more concentrated volley weakened the shield strength and emitters of both ha'tak to the point where blasts began connecting against the hull, shaking them even worse than they had been beforehand.

Apophis stared to the scanners in shock as, beside his own ha'tak, Klorel's... suddenly erupted in flame, quickly extinguishing as there was no air to feed it. "What?"

Klorel swallowed. "... They have destroyed one of our ships, Father."

Apophis was a goa'uld. He did not _like_ to contemplate the possibility of defeat, and he rarely had cause to do so. But he was one of the most dominant among the System Lords, and part of that was due to having the ability to respond to changing circumstances. He was losing. With that massive ship now free to turn its full firepower to him, his lone ha'tak could not be expected to last long.

Acknowledgement done. Next step: How to survive. He could run, but even if he fought to the end, his ha'tak could be considered expendable, the cloaked scout tel'tak was still available in the region to use for withdrawal. Which meant he could think about how to _win_ and risk the ha'tak and jaf'fa, and the stargates aboard his ships - they could all be replaced in barely a decade, losing them would be a defeat, but not one he couldn't recover from handily enough.

The answer to how to 'win' was simple. They wished to protect this world... but he was faster, if the acceleration of the vessel he had seen so far was accurate. Perhaps he could not destroy their ship, but he could certainly destroy a city or two to force them to surrender. If they wouldn't, well, a few destroyed cities was still a 'win' for him, and he had his escape route ready. Better to get something out of two destroyed ha'tak than nothing out of one.

He wrenched the ha'tak around, aiming down, and accelerated at full thrust. Straight down, it didn't really matter what city he came near to first, he'd let this world's rotation decide it for him. And he had a hundred kilometers 'down' to go, with an exceedingly large warship he expected to be following behind him - this was not the time to be picky regarding his targets or with a lead any shorter than he could possibly achieve.

"Klorel, find the largest city within range of our line of descent, and target it." He would normally prefer to simply fire from high above, but his weapons' power degraded sharply when firing through a world's atmosphere, and he needed the possibility of _instantly_ causing casualties unacceptable to them to really get the point through. "And until we are in close range, put all power to drives and shields." They'd be out of effective weapons range anyway, and the ha'tak only really possessed enough power to keep any two of its major systems functioning at full capacity - normally, they didn't _require_ the power to run the hyperdrive alongside the shields and weapons.

Another scattered volley of energy beams and cannons slammed into the rear, the sudden jolt slamming Apophis's face into the control panel before the inertial compensators caught up.

He brought his left hand up to his face and flicked away the blood, growling. This pitiful world would pay **a thousand times** for their insolence!

"And Klorel, tell me the words for this..." He'd heard Klorel's voice... the boy had talent, but he just did _not_ have the delivery satisfactory yet.

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

"Target splashed!" Mansfield reported, surprise in his voice.

Vindel frowned. "We weren't firing, were we, Takeba?"

The young woman shook her head. "No sir. Possible we set something off with that last big volley."

"Or an onboard infiltrator, or onboard incompetence. Don't make any assumptions until we confirm it." Vindel leaned back in his seat, watching the battle, the hard maneuvering, the vicious exchanges of firepower... he'd really rather be out there, but Zweizergain wasn't really operable. While his Mk II was still sitting in the bay with the reserve squadron, he was a better commander than he was a pilot. Shangri-La required a captain, and he couldn't afford to distract the pilots out there with keeping him safe just because he wanted to get into the action himself.

"Remaining target is turning."

Vindel leaned forward again. "Trying to expose a less damaged side...? Send another volley at them, Takeba."

"Yes sir, most batteries are still reloading, but we've got a few ready to go." Of course, she wasn't waiting to finish saying that, she was keying in the commands even as she did. The Trilobite-class carrier _could_ fire all its weapons via computer control and automation, and the CIWS stations were still mostly automated (target designation was controlled by battery officers to prevent the AI from doing anything unwise, though in a pinch they could be dispensed with and the ship controlled entirely by the bridge crew).

But for many roles, humans (with computer assistance) still did it better, and the Shangri-La carried more than enough bored and very antsy personnel to operate its hundred cannon batteries. With a simple timer sent to the available weapon stations, twenty heavy beam cannons and another ten wide-bore scram cannons fired together - the scram cannons first to give their slower projectiles time to reach that pyramid, and then the beam cannons, timed to allow the thirty blasts to connect with the enemy ship simultaneously.

The enemy ship rocked, the shields were no fresher on this side, and a good tenth of the massive spoked-wheel superstructure surrounding the pyramid shattered off... and then it began accelerating away. Downward.

"Enemy ship moving for the surface! Course, counting Earth's rotation... over western Russia, sir!"

Vindel growled. "Can't win in a fight so they're going for the planet, hm? Get us after them, Marita."

Marita simply nodded, speaking into the intercom. "Nose starboard and up... now." Everyone braced and began tightening up their muscles to keep blood flow to their brains from changing too much - more a matter of habit than necessity, this maneuver was far below the 'knock out' threshold - and the kilometer and a half long ship rapidly reoriented to face downward. "Full forward thrust... now." And then they rocked back in their seats as the immense ship accelerated, faster than any 1998 fighter jet, even on afterburner. Minor bursts of thrust played off its top side as it began countering the rotational momentum it had already possessed from orbit, adjusting course to the fastest possible 'straight downward'.

Takeba had obviously had the cannons reorient to face forward, as another burst of fire rippled down after the enemy ship. Not the beam cannons, Shangri-La's fusion plants funneled power directly into thrust, so the ship was already going to minimal power draw to keep its full thrust potential. But the scram cannons were the primary armament anyway, and shattered off more chunks of the hull.

Takeba frowned. "... Insufficient damage, sir. Shields are starting to recover, we can't keep up the old rate of fire and it's getting harder to hit. Should I use the main armament?"

Vindel frowned. "... Negative, they're widening the gap, they'll have time to intercept, if they have the thrust to catch up at all. And with their shields back up, it's likely anything short of nuclear bombardment won't take them down in a single burst. We'll cause worse casualties than we hope to prevent if we load nuclear." The majority of Shangri-La's burst armament was in its very, very large amount of missiles - unfortunately, Vindel couldn't afford to use them except in an emergency, they were irreplaceable until 22nd-century manufacturing facilities were active. And now that an emergency had come, they wouldn't be much use... It was around now that he was very much wishing they'd had opportunity to finish building the Trilobite-class's axial cannons.

"Boss," the communicator lit up. Claire O'Neill. "Lucky's lit up and ready to go."

Finally, something going right. "Turn off the bypass and get it integrated into the thrust network."

"Roger that, boss." She made her voice go a little raspier. "Now, they will see the true power of this fully armed and _operational_ battlecarrier!" The acceleration was physically palpable as the Shangri-La's last fusion reactor added its power to the ship's already spectacular thrust.

"That's it, O'Neill. No more old movies for you." Vindel cut off the comm link.

Marita glanced at her controls, carefully maneuvering the joystick. "... We're passing through the Karman line now. ETA to troposphere... ninety seconds. Pyramid will reach troposphere seventeen seconds ahead of us." They were now in the atmosphere. The real 'air' would arrive down at the troposphere, eighty kilometers down and twenty above the surface - eighty percent of the actual mass was down there. Frankly, as soon as they hit the troposphere, they'd need to flip around and reverse thrust, or they were going to smash into the Earth at around two kilometers a second. Both ships.

The pyramid's acceleration was roughly equal to two gees. Shangri-La at full power could manage one and a half gravities under normal thrust. They were going to fall behind... though since they were going straight downward, the acceleration was actually three gees and two and a half - closer.

Vindel would trust Marita's calculations, she was a great deal better with numbers than he was. Unfortunately, because of those numbers... they were going to need to pull their deceleration a _lot_ closer than the enemy did, or they were unlikely to catch up. Even then, they wouldn't have enough time to take it down before it did a great deal of damage.

Vindel blinked, noting something odd on a readout. They weren't going at full thrust. A portion of it was being diverted to... "Charging Overboost, Marita?"

"I have an idea, sir. If we can catch up. Permission?"

"... Granted. Explain it when we have time."

He could see the edge of her smile as she continued her mysterious plan, charging up the thruster Shangri-La used to achieve orbit. He was starting to get an idea, but he wasn't fool enough to demand one of his numerous intelligent, skilled soldiers take time away from doing important work to explain their genius to their commander.

"We'll catch up in the troposphere, sir. Atmospheric drag is affecting them much more severely than us."

Vindel nodded. Not all that surprising... the rude and rough shape of that pyramid couldn't be anywhere near as well-suited to accelerate through drag as the smooth and stealth-formed hull of a Trilobite. Let alone with the tesla drive ionizing the air around them and routing the plasma to reduce friction - the actual primary function of the device they used as their defensive shield.

"Mansfield, contact our PT and fighter units. Inform them to finish up the battle, pick up what units they can, and settle into stable orbits. We'll be back to pick them up as soon as feasible." Unfortunately, if they were blowing an Overboost, they'd be very low on fuel - presuming they survived at all. They'd need to dive and process more heavy water to fuel their reactors. They _could_ go up immediately to retrieve their units, but they would be dangerously low on fuel. Vindel was not going to put the Shangri-La's crew of fifty thousand at risk to retrieve his sixty pilots early. It would be uncomfortable, but they had sufficient supplies packed away to last a good week up there.

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Samantha Carter winced as the ship rocked while she was ducking for cover behind one of the ship's corners, slamming her into the wall and making parts of her gear dig into tender places.

O'Neill landed next to her... yet somehow landed softer, despite being just as fast. "This is getting ridiculous, Bra'tac!" He poked around the corner, firing off a handful of shots from his zat.

The old jaf'fa didn't look up from the door his group was busily working at. "It will be but a moment."

"Not sure we have one!"

Sam ducked below O'Neill, slipping her MP-5 - running a bit low on ammunition - around the corner and firing a few short, controlled bursts, gunning down three charging Serpent Guard. Staff blasts impacted around her, but the jaffa were way too far out to even consider scoring hits with their weapons. "How many jaffa are _on_ this ship, anyway?"

Teal'c glanced over from the door - carrying the barely-conscious Daniel, he wasn't much use in a fight at the moment. "A goa'uld ha'tak can carry up to two thousand jaf'fa. I see no reason why Apophis would have brought less."

O'Neill pulled away from his firing position as a staff blast got a little too close for comfort. "One, two, three," he counted them, "four, five, six, seven... _Not two thousand_! When were you planning to mention that?"

One of Bra'tac's students coughed into a hand, looking back. "I was inclining towards after we were safely behind a locked door."

The other student glanced at O'Neill. "It's not as if how many there were will matter when we cut out the reactor." Or rather, the power conduits - Bra'tac was taking them to the main conduit that led power from the reactor to the shield generator. If they could destroy that, under the firestorm this ship was already soaking up...

Samantha just hoped that they weren't exposing Earth to something worse in the strange, huge ship. Though O'Neill had pointed out, 'We'll stop the first, for-sure apocalypse, _then_ worry about the second, the maybe one.' And he had a point, relying on Apophis to defend the planet seemed... counterintuitive.

"We are through," Bra'tac announced, as the door opened behind them. SG-1 and their jaffa allies poured through, O'Neill lobbing one of their two remaining grenades down the corridor to dissuade the oncoming Serpent Guard a little bit.

Sam was the last one through, and pulled her MP-5 back as Bra'tac snapped the door shut, scrambling the controls.

Bra'tac and his two not-Teal'c students turned, raising their staff weapons to the nearby wall, and snapping out the tips.

"Time out," O'Neill called, holding his hands in the classic 'T' position. "Wait a sec."

Bra'tac glanced over his shoulder. "We do not have many 'sec's. There are many further corridors that the Serpent Guard may use to approach us. Let us end this, and save your world."

"Carter!" O'Neill snapped, turning to her.

"Sir?"

"Do you think you can make the conduit blow _slowly_?"

"Uh... depends on what you mean by slow, sir. I could make it go up slow-_er_, but it's not like I know this technology that well. I have no idea how long it'll actually take."

"Good enough. We only need a few minutes. Bra'tac, crack that thing open and let Carter work her magic."

Bra'tac blinked, stepping to the wall and hitting a control, which peeled back a panel to expose a strange array of coloured crystals. "Why do you wish it to not go sooner?"

"'cause I figure, maybe that'll be enough time to make it to an escape pod before this ship gets crushed by the big one. We may just survive this."

"... Are you not willing to give your life for your world, human?"

O'Neill shook his head. "Any time, any place. I just figure between saving the world and dying, and saving the world and _maybe_ living through it, I'll take the second one."

"It is your world. Very well." He pointed at the array of crystals. "That is the conduit, Samantha Carter. Do with it what you will."

Samantha moved closer, frowning. "... I have no idea what to do with this thing." Well... when in doubt, guess. She pulled her black-bladed Ka-Bar combat knife, flipped it into a point-down grip, and slammed it into the panel, between several of the crystals. It penetrated through the thin gold covering, and tore down through... whatever was under it.

The growing whine from the panel encouraged her, so she pulled the knife out and stabbed it down again. The whine grew to a howling, so she stepped back, leaving the knife. "Okay, that sounds good!"

Bra'tac nodded, and began moving down the hall. "This way. Quickly."

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Faina Volkova shook her head slightly as her five-year-old son Maxim ran ahead, through the light scattering of people walking across the breadth of Red Square. "Slow down, dear, I'm not that fast!"

"... Mama?"

Faina chuckled, speeding up slightly to keep her son in sight and maintaining her grip on the cellular phone over her right ear. "Not you, Arisha." She looked up as she walked past the intricately carved spires and brilliantly-coloured domes of Saint Basil's Cathedral. She may not have been very religious, but she could certainly appreciate beauty. "I'm taking Maxim on the visit to Red Square. He's as excited as you were, dear."

She obviously couldn't see it, but knowing her daughter, she was flushed as red as her hair. Was a pity not to see it, really, Faina thought it looked cute as could be - then again, she was the mother, so she was biased. "Who wouldn't be? The first time, in the heart of Russia?"

"You know, nobody's listening in on you, you don't need to display the patriotism that openly," Faina teased. Of course, the fervour was just covering up her embarrassment... Faina had no idea why she was so embarrassed, though, really. Arisha was five at the time, of course she'd do silly things. Didn't mean she couldn't get her daughter all flustered over it for fun, though.

"... Sorry I couldn't make it, mama."

Faina shook her head, walking ahead. "Don't worry about it, Arisha. You got recalled, I could hardly expect you to control what the Army decides. Your father got called off to work himself."

"It's just you and Max?"

"Hey now. I may not be a tough Army girl, but I'm sure I'm up to touring Red Square... if I can catch up with Maxim, at least..."

"Sorry, mama..."

"Hey now, don't give me that whipped puppy tone, I'm not angry, that was a joke." She paused. "For clarification, _that_ was an expression, I haven't actually whipped any puppies. Lately."

"I don't think I wanted to know what you and papa do at night."

Faina grinned. "Was that a joke, Arisha? You're learning! Just a second, I'd tease you more but I have to catch up with your little brother."

"It's good that you have your priorities..."

"Always, my dear!" Faina lowered the phone, breaking out into a jog.

Maxim was an energetic little munchkin, but her legs were a great deal longer - it wasn't long before she caught up to the giggling child, looping her arms under his and picking him up. "Caught me, mama!"

She smiled. "Yes, yes I did. I swear, I can't take my eyes off you for a se-"

The first impacts from the ha'tak's bombardment weaponry were, at the least, quick.

If there was any pain for those caught at the center, it was mercifully short.

Not that that was much comfort to everyone outside the cleanly delineated line that had once been buildings, and was now a pool of bubbling, superheated stone and concrete. Immediately across the street from the eight-story-plus-spire Armed Forces General Staff office. Dozens of people within dropped what they were doing, phones, pens, coffee mugs clattering to the ground, as they could do nothing but stare.

"... Mama? Mama, what's wrong?" But Arisha Volkova was speaking into a dead phone line.

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Admiral Nikolay Kalinin, commander of the Russian Navy's Black Sea Fleet, truly had no damned idea what was going on. All he had really been told, twenty-four hours ago, was to turn his radar skyward, raise military readiness, and await further orders, orders which he had passed down throughout the ships of the fleet.

He strode back and forth as best he could across the Moskva's cramped bridge, trying to restrain his irritation. The men around him were good men, and had nothing to do with it. He was a big, long-limbed man, the bridge really wasn't designed for pacing, but he'd get even more irritable cranking his limbs into knots in the seats.

He wasn't an unintelligent man, though. If he'd had to guess... which he did... he would suspect that someone had pulled something moronic in space, and he was to be on the alert for something crashing down over Russia. Probably the Americans. And he didn't actually mean that in a 'those Americans are up to something' sense... simply that the majority of what was _in_ space was either American or Russian.

This struck him as unlikely to be an attack or impending attack - or a crashing Russian satellite. If Command knew what the hell was going on, they'd have given clear orders, telling him the course of the attack, where it would pass over, and if he couldn't please shoot it down. This 'stand ready' suggested they had no damned idea what was up either, but suspected there might be a possibility of needing firepower.

"Comrade Admiral! Two contacts on radar, extremely high altitude, course down and west!"

Nikolay whirled to look at the radar screen. "Those are..."

"... extremely large, I was about to say, sir. Bigger than Mir... I have no idea what they are. Course is shifting slightly and maintaining stability... they're both controlled, sir."

He turned to his communications officer. "Hail them both, now." If personnel were aboard, he seriously had some talking to do, and whether they were or not, the damned things were roaring down at two kilometers a second and were liable to do a great deal of damage to Bulgaria if they continued on that course.

"Channels ready... go ahead, sir."

"This is Admiral Nikolay Kalinin of the Russian Navy! Airborne units, identify yourselves, or you will be fired upon." He repeated himself in English for good measure. It wasn't that he really wanted to take an aggressive tack here... just that there was a matter of minutes or seconds before those things crashed into the ground like a new-class weapon of mass destruction.

It was a mere moment before a fuzzy, irregular signal came back, speaking in deceptively calm Russian. "This is Shadow Mirror. We are the larger unit, in pursuit of what we have been told is an alien invader. Request you do not shoot at us. We are firing upon the enemy, and promise not to touch Russia."

"Who in _hell_ are you supposed to be? Why exactly should I trust you? Pull off your current course!"

"Were I to do that, I'd be consigning everyone in the region to probable death. I understand your concerns, and only ask that you not fire on us for the next two minutes."

Nikolay gritted his teeth. On one hand, if he pulled the trigger, he might start a war that he probably couldn't handle... on the other, if he didn't an attack could be launched. He hated not having enough information to make proper decisions... But there was something about that voice. And they had, at least, bothered to make contact. He'd make the same decision Stanislav Petrov had made. Better to risk a few people dying now than to cause many people to die in a nuclear war. "Target both objects, but refrain from opening fire until I give the order."

"Forward unit is slowing descent, sir!"

It was mere seconds until it actually became visible... a huge flying object, shaped and sized like an ancient Egyptian pyramid, the sides surrounded by what looked like it had originally been a shape somewhat like the spokes of a wheel - though several spokes were broken off. Pulses of orange light flowed off it, arcing northward, towards Moscow.

A second transmission came across. Broadband, transmitted to everyone, everywhere. "I am your god, Apophis! Kneel before me, or I will destroy a new city for every minute you stand against me!"

The communications operator swallowed. "... Significant damage to central Moscow, sir. I think the Kremlin is gone..."

Nikolay growled, looking up at the pyramid. "... Blow it away." It seemed the mysterious 'Shadow Mirror' spoke truth. Regarding their enemy, at least... about themselves, he didn't know yet.

"Sir, we don't have authori-"

"It just _shot_ at Moscow! That's all the authorization we need! Fire! That goes for the entire fleet!"

Eight VLS hatches across the ship's surface snapped open, the powerful radar rapidly targeting the pyramid craft - it wasn't exactly a difficult target, just hovering there, kilometers above, after all. A moment later, eight large 48N6E2 missiles were simultaneously ejected from the cells, rapidly climbing upward on their own engine power.

The rotary launchers spun, slipping the next missiles into the hatch, and immediately firing before spinning again. Moskva packed sixty-four missiles, and its S-300PMU anti-air battery could handle independent tracking of up to thirty-six targets. Nikolay intended to unload everything until that huge craft was destroyed, and the Moskva's namesake was avenged in full.

A similar barrage, though only two missiles at a time, came from Ochakov, the only other ship in range of the massive vessel.

Almost instantly, orange lances shot off the spokes surrounding the pyramid, shattering Ochakov in mere moments... what remained of the ship began sinking, far out of sight.

The first missiles connected... slamming into an orange, translucent wall, seeming to transfer light around the shields, along odd lines... Out of the first brace of ten, only one made it through, tearing a barely noticeable divot off the vessel's armour.

Nikolay swallowed. "... Keep firing until our ammunition runs dry. And then all hands are to abandon ship. All nonessential personnel may leave immediately." He doubted it'd help much, but he owed it to his crew.

And then... well, then, Nikolay Kalinin was forced to withdraw his evaluation of the pyramid ship as 'massive', as a truly gigantic ship, long and rectangular, with a flared-arrowhead nose, at least double or triple its size came down after it. Even kilometers away, the noise was horrific...

Nikolay was also wondering whether the laws of physics had been withdrawn, as he saw its nose rise up, the immense, kilometer-long block of metal flipping end for end with agility he'd be impressed to see in a fighter jet.

And then the thrusters fired, lancing a long drive plume into the pyramid ship as the larger one rapidly, horrifically rapidly, decelerated. Even rockets didn't pull acceleration like that.

The laws of physics were _not_ withdrawn. It was true that the vast majority of the ship's exhaust was absorbed by the flickering shield - though a fair percentage of it leaked through the flickering shield, to ravage the upper surface.

But Newton's Third Law was still in effect. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The force of the drive plume leaving the ship was sufficiently high that it decelerated the massive ship at a rate well over ten times the force of gravity - within thirteen seconds of pure thrust, they had come to a screeching halt, hovering above the Black Sea.

That same force slammed into the shields of the pyramid ship, which forcibly, instantly decelerated the drive stream to prevent penetration. But that force didn't disappear - it transferred into the shield generator, pressing it back with the same twenty-million tons at over a dozen gees force that it had always possessed.

The shield generator itself was mounted with a fair amount of spare space, and very powerful mountings, allowing it room to slow down the deceleration, do it at a safer, saner rate. But it was simply overwhelmed, despite the best efforts of the designers, ripped from its moorings and hammered down through the hull. The generator rapidly shattered under the force as the massive ship kept up the thrust, and the tattered remains of it tore a hole in the bottom of the ship, crashing down in the Black Sea.

Leaving the drive stream free, unshielded access to the ship - it began slowly wiggling, carving deep lines and tracks through the pyramid's hull, and towards the end of the thirteen-second drive stream, it began burning in one end of the ship and out the other, lancing beyond it into the Black Sea and turning several tons of water into steam.

In the end, the pyramid plummeted down, crashing through the water and sinking rapidly, both as it lost its own thrust, and as it was driven downwards by the immense ship's sheer power.

The gigantic ship came to a stop, hovering in midair a few meters above the waves. And slowly leveled out.

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Author's Notes:

First thing's first - thanks go out to prereaders - the list being Sunshine Temple, DCG, Ellf, and Belgarion213.

Honestly, not too many comments to make here that I haven't made in the prologue notes, since I'm releasing these two together. This was the start of the real action, and the changes in the timeline. Said changes being obvious enough that I don't really need to get into them.

I will make a thorough apology if there are any difficulties in reading the fic or in telling when there's a transition from one scene to another. I've noticed a few things FFNet stripped out as soon as I submitted it (notably, line breaks, I had to try four different styles before the damn thing stopped deleting them), but I have no idea what I might have missed. I post my original copies on www fukufics com, so if you want to read them as well as they come, that's where you'll find them. Beyond that, I can do nothing but apologize, and dream wistfully of the days when whatever retarded chimpanzees are controlling FFNet's formatting are replaced with actual sentient human beings.

Ironically, the immediate outcome of this episode is substantially worse in fic than the original timeline. Three plans to save Earth kind of crashed into each other and got in one anothers' way (I'm not even counting Samuels's idea...). On the other hand, the _end_ outcome... well, that's a different question, isn't it?

Enjoy the ride.

As always, reviews, comments, corrections, and etcetera are appreciated whether for good or ill, and my email's always open (PaleWLF gmail com).


	3. Chapter 02: Intermission

Disclaimer: No copyright is mine, thus no copyrighted character is. If you recognize them from something that's not written by 'Pale Wolf', I have no legal claim to them.

Author note: Minor correction. Faina and Arisha Volksyn at the end of last chapter renamed to Volkova. Was corrected by readers who actually know Russian.

The Shadow on the Other Side of the Mirror

By Pale Wolf

Chapter Two

Intermission

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

The footage played before he was to go on, giving him time to breathe, and fret. The core of it was taken by an enterprising Ukrainian who had apparently had a video camera to hand - one Mykola Lytvyn of Odessa, a port on the Black Sea - before having been touched up, and the remainder had been supplied by the United States Air Force's observation of the battle.

There had been no point in trying to cover it up any longer. Millions of people had _seen_ the ships with their own eyes. And with the bombardment central Moscow had been subjected to... people were going to want blood.

William Nichol, the fourty-second President of the United States, suspected he was screwed. This disclosure was not going to look good. The sheer speed with which this interview before the United Nations had been arranged showed how much everyone wanted _answers_. It was barely a day since the events in question.

At least it wasn't a press conference. The media would eat him alive if they got half a chance. This would still be publicized, though... he may be screwed, but damned if he'd make it easy.

The footage came to an end, showing the immense flared-arrowhead-and-rectangle spacecraft calmly slipping under the surface of the Black Sea. Addo Mahama, the present Secretary-General of the United Nations and mediator over this meeting, turned from the large screen to look at William. "I believe President Nichol of the United States has something he wishes to share with us?" Perfectly mild and unassuming... if one paid no attention to context. The man sounded like a schoolteacher.

William nodded, standing and leaning forward to his microphone. "I'd like to ask everyone listening to bear with me... There is a fair amount of background information that I will need to cover, and while not all of it will pertain directly to this attack, it is all relevant."

Andrei Volkov, a tall, pale, thin man with blonde hair hanging somewhat messily, seated across from him, nodded calmly. "Take your time."

William glanced at him, evaluating. The man was... more or less the present head of state of the Russian Federation, being its highest surviving government official after Apophis's bombardment had destroyed the Kremlin along with much of the rest of central Moscow. His prior job had been as the head of the Russian patent office. This was probably his first time even _in_ the United Nations building.

William probably had Volkov to thank for saving the world. According to the intelligence that had come in, Russia _had_ spotted the incoming, and had simply gone onto a quiet state of high alert. Dead Hand had been activated - the system that allowed full automatic launch of all of Russia's ICBMs, in the event of the destruction of high command. Volkov had managed to reestablish contact in the short window before the people in command of Dead Hand got antsy about the attack and potentially ordered full launch at the United States.

William took a deep breath, looking around the large room. Well... the whole world was waiting on him now. "This whole thing started about four years ago, under the tenure of my predecessor. The United States had come into possession of a piece of alien technology which we called, at the time, the Gate of Heaven. Over the years prior the United States Air Force managed to cobble together an interface, and a basic understanding of how the device functioned. There were still some problems in getting it to work, however, and so they brought in an archaeologist named Doctor Daniel Jackson. He was considered fringe, but an expert with languages - and successfully deciphered the 'instructions' and 'address' which had been excavated with the gate, along with its proper name. The Stargate."

The fact that no one was calling bullshit when 'alien' was in his second sentence... this felt like the damn Twilight Zone.

"The first exploratory team under Colonel Jonathan O'Neill activated the gate, and stepped through to an alien world. A world its inhabitants called Abydos."

"And was it the Abydonians who assaulted Russia yesterday? Vengeance for whatever your team did to them?" Wen Qinglin, the Chinese representative. Volkov shot him a slightly scornful look... no surprise. Russia and China tended not to get along, and up to a bare nine years ago, the communist states had been more likely to go to war with each other than the United States. Qinglin was likely just using Russia's misfortune as ammo against the US. This whole crisis was probably party time for China.

William shook his head. "Actually, no. Abydos probably doesn't even count as a first contact situation. The Abydonians are human. As in from Earth."

Thaaaat one caused a ruckus. Maybe now they'd let him talk.

He took another breath. "From what we've been able to piece together, approximately ten thousand years ago and for an unclear length of time, Earth was ruled by the Goa'uld Empire. A parasitical race with the capability of controlling their hosts, and a habit of creating empires of slaves by using their advanced technologies to pretend to be gods. The ruler of this race was the Egyptian Sun God Ra... I'm afraid it's unclear whether these goa'uld pretended to be these gods, or inspired the myths of these gods. The only ones who have lived that long are the goa'uld themselves, and they're not talking... or, well, what they say isn't really trustworthy."

Kurt Faymann, the Austrian representative, snorted. "I was buying the 'alien' story... gods, not so much."

"The first transmission they ever sent was 'I am your god'," Volkov noted. "The idea of such a masquerade seems feasible thus far. At least let him get to the interesting parts before pouncing on it."

"Thank you," William nodded to the Russian. _I wasn't expecting an ally from that quarter..._ "The majority of the galaxy we have explored thus far is populated by humans, originally taken from Earth by the goa'uld as slaves - there are so many such worlds that the goa'uld don't even exert active control over a fair number of them. Unfortunately, the exploration team had our first encounter with the goa'uld when Ra returned to Abydos, attacking them and planning to send a nuclear warhead through the gate to Earth." _Please don't ask whose nuke it was. Please don't ask whose nuke it was._ "The team, with the help of the Abydonians, managed to stop the strike, and in the doing, Ra was destroyed."

Qinglin calmly raised an eyebrow. "So the United States embroiled Earth in an interstellar war."

"It was self-defence," Volkov noted. "Of both the team, and everyone in the vicinity of the gate. They shot first, we have been told. From what I have seen, I'm inclined to believe it. The goa'uld started this war, not the United States."

William frowned slightly. He had no idea what the Russian's angle was, but this friendliness was starting to make him nervous. "Regardless of who started it, my predecessor didn't want to continue it. After Ra's defeat and the safe return of the exploration team, the gate was shut down. We thought that was the end of it. Then last year, the goa'uld launched a small strike through the gate, proving that... well, they knew we were still there, and they were interested. Given the potential threat to Earth, I authorized the formation of Stargate Command, under General Hammond."

"I'm sure waging a war without even informing your people will go over well." Nguyen Minh Trong, President of Vietnam. "Again."

William winced. "The assaults on Cambodia during our war were not the decision of my administration, Mister Trong - Operation Menu was in 1969, far before my time. And Stargate Command was _not_ to wage a war. It was primarily an exploratory command. Find offworld allies, resources, and technologies that we could use to reinforce and defend Earth."

"You mean the United States," Trong noted mildly. "I note a distinct lack of offworld allies, resources, and technologies in my records."

Volkov coughed. "This is an issue for another time. I don't disagree, but let's at least let the man have his say."

William nodded to him. "Thank you..." President? Director? What in hell was Volkov's title right now? "... Mister Volkov. The SGC continued operations over the last year, avoiding confrontation with the goa'uld as much as possible. We believed we were a minor enough problem that they would not send a ship to deal with us, and assault through the gate was rendered impossible. ... Apparently, however, we were wrong. The first we became aware of this strike, they were in orbit. From there... you know the rest." He thought it would be... best, if it did not become public knowledge that the program was being shut down when the attack came. The 'starting a war' claim was bad enough, but shutting down the only line of defence would get him ripped apart.

"Quite a 'rest' it is, Mister Nichol," Qinglin noted. "A hundred thousand dead in Moscow, and not only Russians. Riots in the streets. My security forces had to dismantle a bomb threat on your embassy. And we are now at war with an alien race that can wipe us all out, and another alien ship that can wipe _them_ out still on the planet somewhere and refusing to communicate with us."

William closed his eyes. "... I don't know anything about that alien ship. The people we've met offworld haven't spoken of such a group - as far as we knew, the goa'uld were almost completely dominant in the galaxy." Maybe it was the Tollan? ... He wasn't going to mention the Tollan, the fact that he'd signed off on 'hold them prisoner as forced intellectual labour' was not going to help his already precarious situation.

"So we are dependent on the good graces of a completely unknown alien race, at war with another, and all because the United States decided to play 'Star Trek'."

"It doesn't matter," Andrei Volkov stated.

"... Doesn't matter?" Qinglin looked at him strangely. "Need I remind you of a hundred thousand dead, in your own capital?"

Volkov nodded, standing up in his seat to speak. "Exactly. Russia is at war. We did not declare it, but my people do not seem inclined to let this matter go."

Secretary-General Mahama looked at him. "... There has not yet been a UN resolution on this matter."

"With or without you. The United Nations does not have the authority to prevent us from waging war in our own defence. We were suddenly, and deliberately, attacked by a foreign enemy with whom we had no quarrel. The people of the Russian Federation have already formed their opinions, and we well understand the implications of this course of action. Russia would appreciate anyone who joins us on this... but we are now at war until the goa'uld have paid sufficient restitution for this. As to be determined by the Russian people." He sat back down.

William whistled. Second day in office and he was already declaring war on a high-powered alien race. Bolder than he'd expected from the head of a patent office. At least now Volkov was taking the assembly's attention away from William. They couldn't do anything to him... but he'd appreciate if their questioning didn't reveal any more of the mistakes the United States had made under his command. They were already gearing up to excoriate him back home and he could do with them holding less ammo to use on him.

Naoto Ogawa, the Japanese representative, glanced at William. The language was, indeed, familiar to both of them. A date which will live in infamy... Ogawa certainly knew better than to get in Russia's way at this point.

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Lieutenant Claire O'Neill glared at her commanding officer as she walked into the briefing room. The appearance of such facilities hadn't really changed a lot since their first inception, they filled their function well enough. Round table, seats arrayed around it... to be sure, the table had built-in computer terminals, and the outer walls were screens presently showing the ocean outside the ship, but the style hadn't changed.

For his part, Colonel Vindel Mauser simply looked mild. "You can hardly blame me that none of them had protection against our knockout gas. You'll get in on the next firefight, but we needed prisoners and intact salvage. We barely got a dozen as it was, Marita cooked or drowned almost all of them and we couldn't go shooting the remainder."

She grumbled incoherently, taking her seat around the table. She knew, of course, but she still wanted to get in some combat time before she went rusty. She'd missed two major, world-shattering battles in a row... The curse of scientific training.

Vindel paused as the remaining personnel filed into the room and around the table. This wasn't all of Shadow Mirror, of course, or even of the people aboard Shangri-La. A few key experts, to assemble the data they had so far.

Claire grinned and waved slightly at Alex as he slipped in, pulling the lollipop - red, of course - from her mouth for a moment. He nodded back, with a wince upon agitating some of his bruises from the reactor, taking his own seat and bringing both hands up to put his glasses back in place.

Vindel looked around the room. "Very well then... let's begin. Cherenkov."

The blonde Commander Andrew Cherenkov nodded, standing up. His arm was still in a sling after the battering he'd taken in Transition, but that was hardly going to impair him attending a briefing. Oddly, despite the injured arm, he looked neat and tidy in his uniform, picture-perfect. "Shangri-La is mostly intact - the beam coating greatly reduced the effectiveness of their energy weapon fire. We've lost some layers of armour over hard-hit regions, but repairs are progressing smoothly, the tesla screen is still working and can keep our workers protected while they replace the outer blocks. No internal penetration worth mentioning. We're taking on water and reprocessing it as fast as we can, we should be completely refueled before too long."

Vindel nodded. "We received Flash from our PTs before submerging. For their part, we lost ten units, but eight of them managed to eject and were retrieved by the survivors."

There was a quiet cheer around the room at that. Claire tried to make it louder, but Alex, Cherenkov, Marita, Vindel, and a few of the others were more the 'quiet, satisfied smile' type. Seriously though, up against twice their number and only two casualties? That was whoopworthy.

"They'll survive for up to a few weeks, which should be plenty of time to refuel and determine how we're going about retrieval. We don't have the detailed telemetry of the smallcraft battle yet, so we'll table that aspect of the debriefing for later. Cherenkov, you're up again - what's our status regarding pursuit from local forces?"

The officer shook his head. "Not worth talking about, Colonel. The pyramid ship crashed to the bottom of the Euxine abyssal plain. We're two kilometers below the surface. Right now, going by history, the only submarine on Earth that can go this deep is the Shangri-La. Deep submergence rescue vehicles aren't rated beyond a kilometer and a half, and would crush down here. We've had a few bathyscaphes floating down here and taking observations of us, though, I presume Russian or Ukrainian. They can't actually do anything at this depth, so I've left them unmolested."

Vindel shook his head. "Leave them, they can look all they want."

"Yes sir."

"O'Neill, you've been in charge of the salvage teams. What do we have so far?"

Claire grinned, standing up and keying in a display from her terminal. The wall screens shifted, showing the structure of the ship as far as they'd been able to determine it. She took her lollipop out, dangling it between the fingers of her left hand. "We're still mostly at work taking it apart and shipping what looks important onboard. There was a weird ring thing with constellation marks in the cargo bay, for instance. No idea what it did and it was heavy as hell, but it was in a prominent place so we crammed it into the hangar. Lot of crystals making up the tech, right now we think they're primarily power regulators through odd shapes in the microstructure of the crystals. Think a really hardy circuit board. I'm not sure why their targeting and electronic warfare was so lacking, they have a lot of processing power in those things."

Alex spoke up. "It's possible they have poor integration. The design of that thing was horrible... I mean, half the internal walls were gold, there were at least a hundred dead just because the gold spalled off the inside under our bombardment. Free fragmenting artillery, as far as we're concerned. They might just have very advanced science but bad engineering."

"Speaking of that gold, what are we doing with it?"

Claire shrugged. "Loading it aboard for now, boss. We have plenty of spare internal space and we might find some use for it all. Oh, and you're gonna love this bit about the materials. Guess what's in the hull and the... the thing we think is the reactor unit?"

"I don't feel like guessing. Tell me."

"Bah, spoil my fun... Tronium. Liquid in the case of the reactor." Claire smirked, pointing dramatically with the lollipop.

There was absolute silence.

Vindel was the first to recollect his bearings and speak. "We knew tronium was an alien material... but that thing did not behave as if it had a tronium reactor for output. And tronium is nowhere near stable enough to use in the hull."

Claire nodded. "The 289 isotope definitely isn't, but this stuff isn't pure 289. It's... I don't know, _natural_ tronium. About ninety percent of the reactor block is tronium-285, which seems to be pretty much completely stable. The hull is almost completely 285, I think they enrich the power source stuff to a higher percentage of 289 and use the 'depleted tronium' as a superheavy material, same as the way uranium's used. The reactor is _nothing_ on a pure tronium block like SRX had."

Frowns around the table. ... Whoops. Reminding them of SRX's fate probably hadn't been her best move.

Alex brought up a hand, providing a welcome distraction, as well as a well-concealed wince. "Okay... you're itching to get onto this, so I'll give you an opening. Could you make a tronium reactor out of this stuff? We've never been able to manufacture element 114, but can you get the isotope we want out of a sample of the material?"

Claire grinned. "This amount of it, no. Not worth talking about." She waved a hand, dismissing the matter. "There's not enough 289 in the whole ship to get more than maybe a ten-centimeter cube of supergrade. I mean, I could _maybe_ use neutron bombardment to turn the 285 into 289, but it'll be resource-intensive if it works at all. But, 'this material', presuming we can get a big enough source of it? Theoretically, yes. I'd have to retune our AVLIS isotope separators, they're not set up for anything heavier than uranium right now, but if we _can_ get it adjusted - I'd need to look at the equipment and get cracking on the project to tell you for sure - then we can toss a block of raw tronium in and get out pretty close to pure T-289."

Vindel raised an eyebrow. "I don't believe I need to tell you to 'get cracking', do I?"

"Nope, boss, I gotcha." She sat down again, smiling, and parking the lollipop back in her mouth. It was certainly true that tronium reactors were nowhere near as reliable and safe as the General Fusion reactors they used as standard issue... but there was a lot to be said for sheer output, that made the matter well worth looking into. Maybe she could talk him into letting her work on the old Huckebein prototype's reactor concept...

... On second thought, that one was a little crazy even for Shadow Mirror. She'd wait until something had the boss all shook up before floating that one. Or they had a spare, throwaway pla... solar system.

Alex stood up. He _looked_ like he was wearing regular civvies, but Claire could see the black undersuit - Alex tended to wear the SMI-4-I light body armour more or less constantly, probably because it was about as comfortable as normal clothes and provided some extra protection. "Unfortunately, after good news like that, my bit is going to sound really bad. We have almost nothing on their shields."

Vindel just _looked_ at the petite young man.

Alex held up his hands. "I'm sorry, sir, but our recorders were broken in Transition and we didn't find the damage until after the fight - we were focusing on getting immediately critical systems functioning again. I wasn't on the bridge to look at it, so I've got only vague visual descriptions. I found what I _think_ is the shield generator, but I'd describe the internals as a 'slurry'. We beat the hell out of it, it's useless for analysis beyond maybe what materials they use in making it."

Vindel sighed, rubbing his temple. "Okay, fine. What do you have?"

Alex tapped the terminal in front of him. Information began scrolling down it - lots of numbers, energy values and momentum figures and frequency rates, oh my. And a lot of graphs. Claire could keep up, but this stuff was really Alex's field. She was pretty sure she could see Cherenkov's eyes crossing. "The shield seems to instantly stop attacks... what it does from there, I don't know, nobody had a good enough visual description of the shield for me to guess. Power wise, it can completely hold off... I'm not going to say 'anything', but the shield is impenetrable to up to a gigaton, so I can say that unless we deploy an extremely big-ticket weapon like a Tronium Buster Cannon or something off Astranagant, or _maybe_ a conventional axial cannon, we have no reasonable expectation of breaking one of those shields in a single shot. Sustained impacts work, we were doing solid damage to it before it stretched out the range. I'm pretty sure we outgun at least two of those things put together, but I don't have hard numbers yet."

Vindel nodded. "That's good for now. We know we can take on a two to one, but beyond that, wait for hard data if we can?"

"Right, sir. Their shields are 'hard' - it's more or less instant stop, the attack essentially is halted at a boundary. Our shields are 'soft' - they decelerate and disrupt incoming attacks to let the armour handle them. The shorter stop time makes theirs less effective against high-momentum attacks - they have more impulse to deal with, while ours have it spread out for the entire depth of the shield. Some good design can probably give a fair protection factor to their generator, though, but it obviously wasn't enough. As Miss Grace guessed, eh?"

Marita nodded. "Not really in those terms... I wasn't thinking of the momentum per second factor, just pure momentum."

Vindel shrugged. "It worked, I'll call that good enough."

Claire laughed, talking around her lollipop - a skill she'd mastered years ago, to minimize missing out on the flavour. "Now there's a Shadow Mirror slogan. Back at it, loverboy."

Alex twitched, adjusting his glasses - or rather, if Claire knew him as well as she thought, using the way his arms came up to adjust his glasses to shield his face and hide his expression for a moment. "I really wish you'd stop calling me that at some point. It's not like that. But _anyway_... Not much more on the shields, but Miss Grace seems to have exploited a second vulnerability she didn't know about."

Marita blinked. "... I did?"

Alex nodded. "The descriptions I've got have repeatedly indicated that we've scored hits on the target surface while the shield was still up. I think I know why. The shield has a frequency... specific rate is impossible to tell without data recorders. It flickers off for extremely short intervals - that's probably why we can even see the ship through the shield."

Cherenkov blinked. "... Flickers... off? What would be the point of having an oscillating shield like that? Couldn't it just have been a result of our bombardment?"

Alex laid a finger along his neck, tapping. "Okay, bear in mind this is all theory. It holds up to the facts we have, but we don't have all the facts so it could be off-base. I think our bombardment increased the 'off' frequency - but that it was already there." He tapped the terminal again, and the display showed a pair of shields surrounding vessels - the bubble around the pyramids, and the tightly-bonded plasma layer over the surface of a computer representation of a Trilobite. "The area of their shield is anomalous. It's... well, it's too big. Every millilitre of space you're covering with a shield needs to be accounted for by the generators. But they've got this great huge bubble, and a whole lot of it's empty space. It doesn't seem to make sense. They stop attacks instantly, they don't need layer space to work with. Unless they can only generate shields of a highly regular shape."

Cherenkov cocked his head. "But... they're more advanced than we are. We can freely control shield geometry, we pull the shields out from over the guns all the time, and it's bonded straight to the hull."

"Sure, but they seem to be working off a totally different physical principle. It may be impossible to generate a nonregular shape with this kind of shield generator. We know they didn't, even when it would have benefited them - for instance, to improve their anti-drag characteristics while they were running from us, or to angle their shields against our attacks."

Vindel raised an eyebrow. "Impossible? From an engineer?"

"With a singular shield generator, it may be. Even if it is I can string an irregular shape just by layering a whole whack of smaller shield generators each making its own regular shape, but it may be undesirable for some reason, or it may just be that they don't seem to be very careful about matters of design. I mean... gold hallways, sir. And flying pyramids."

"Your point is made."

Alex licked his lips. "Thing is, if they don't have control over shield geometry... well, like Commander Cherenkov said. They can't pull their shield away to let their cannons fire through. They have to shut the whole thing down. But obviously, it's stupid to shut it down manually - if your guys can fire out through it, we can fire _in_. So they set it to a timer instead. The cannons only actually fire when they know the shield is down. Same basic principle as World War I aircraft, they time the propeller and the circuit only lets the machine guns fire when the propeller isn't in front of the gun. That's my theory for the moment, at least. The guns do appear to have a conduit hooking them to the chamber where I think the shield generator was originally located - going by the huge tract of destruction from it getting ripped out, anyway."

Vindel nodded. "We'll need to get some more samples for you to run tests on, then. Anything else?"

"Well... we definitely had Earth-native infiltrators aboard the ship. There was a conduit between the power core and the shield chamber that had a US Marines issue knife stuck in it." He shook his head. "The conduit was blown, though since the shield was up until we smashed it, I think it blew afterward. Maybe ten seconds later the shields could've completely crashed even without our intervention."

Nobody even bothered asking 'With a knife?' 'If it works, do it' was another Shadow Mirror operating principle.

"I think we have those infiltrators," Marita noted. "There's a group of three that we have in a separate cell. Black, Earth-style clothing, radically different from the manner of dress of the other eight. No national insignia, so I don't know who they work for yet. There's a fourth member of that team, injured and presently in the medical bay. When we wake them up, I'd like to start interrogations with him."

Vindel raised an eyebrow.

Marita seemed to speak a bit hurriedly to explain herself. "With the painkillers and medicine running through his system, he's more likely to babble and be less careful with his words, sir."

Vindel's eyebrow rose further. "You are the expert. It's under your discretion. What about the aliens?"

"We only have eight of them alive... lot of dead bodies that medical is autopsying, but we don't have anything back from that yet. Humanoid, sir. Casual inspection indicates almost completely human, except for a marsupial pouch in the abdomen. I didn't want the doctors to go poking to see what's in there yet, though, if they keep children in there and we damage something, they're going to be a lot less likely to talk to us."

Claire huffed. "What is _with_ all the completely-human-looking aliens? My childhood dreams are shattering here, the Inspectors looked just like humans too."

Cherenkov glanced at her. "Sensor booms have picked up a broadcast of a UN speech... something about kidnapped slave populations. Maybe they're human stock and modified? It might be applicable back in our world as well, just because we never ran across these... goa'uld... at home before doesn't mean they weren't out there."

"_Such_ a boring galaxy..."

Alex coughed into his hand. "They do want to shoot us. I wouldn't call it boring."

Damn, he was right. Okay, they weren't silicon-chemistry Lovecraftian horrors, but they _were_ armed and hostile, so Claire had to admit that on the whole, it came out pretty shiny.

Marita looked to Vindel. "... What are we doing, sir? Long-term?"

Vindel paused. "... Our first priority is to finish accounting salvage, see what we can do with all of it. Prisoners and information. And one of you two supergeeks, dig into the System XN logs. Find out if we're even in the right universe. If we are, we need to find Helios. If we're not... if we're not, we can't afford another cross-universe jump like that again. We'll have to figure out another means of stabilizing System XN if Helios isn't here. Beyond that... we wait, and try and locate the other units."

"And the locals? And the aliens?" Cherenkov prompted.

"We'll roll that as it comes. There don't seem any major issues to correct here on Earth, though we can probably prevent a few billion people dying of illness and poor infrastructure if we leak a little technology." He tapped his cheek. "I'm considering further leaks, to be honest. We're the best, but we're only one ship, there's a limit to how well we can secure the planet. Six billion people with garbage weapons are better than fifty thousand with the best. Prevent a unified world government from forming at all costs, excessive concentration of powers turned our world into a shithole. And keep it intact. If we can get out of the system and find the aliens, we'll go stomp on them."

"What about contacting the locals in an official sense?"

"Stay limited. They're going to be undergoing major societal changes right now, I want to stay out of it until things have stabilized enough for us to know what we're getting into. Exert some influence if we can and have to. Recruit locals as opportunity allows, we're short on personnel. We'll show our hand when things have stabilized to a point we like."

"Local wars?"

"Stay out. We don't have the personnel to enforce anything lasting and they don't have anything to offer us anyway. We'll leave local affairs to the locals. Remember, our primary reason for being here is to recover and improve our status once more. We've got other wars to fight and worlds to save after this one." He paused. "Of course, if we happen to be walking by and see something to intervene in, it's not like we have a shortage of power."

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Daniel Jackson's eyes snapped open, and his first thought was 'Am I in Heaven?'

Not because the face he woke up to was that beautiful - though to be sure, she was cute. A girl was sitting across from where he lay, hands folded in her lap. He'd eyeball her as eighteen years old... asian features, more North Asia than south. Slim, well-formed, very fit. Hair and eyes were both... dark. Somewhere in the vicinity between black and slate-grey, the hair cut short, framing her face. She was dressed in a yellow, Chinese-style shirt - just a stylistic relationship, not actual traditional dress - a short blue-grey skirt, and a pair of brown slippers. The expression on her soft features was... attention-grabbing. Thoughtful. A little melancholy, if anything.

But she had nothing to do with his ponderings of heaven. Mostly, he was thinking it because last he'd been awake he'd been in a situation where death looked pretty imminent, and he didn't _hurt_ any more. But then again, he didn't actually _believe_ in heaven. Not that he didn't like the idea, just that he knew too much about the history of how the idea evolved across cultures to actually hew to the belief. The myths were fascinating and said a lot about the people who created them, but they weren't Universal Truth to him.

Which meant... "... Hospital?"

The girl nodded calmly.

He looked around. Looked pretty much right, though not like the SGC's infirmary - still in a hospital gown, though. His bed and sheets, trolley with a meal laid out... he stared for a moment. That looked like real food. What kind of hospital was this? His glasses were there too, and he'd be wanting them if he planned to get a decent look at anything further than, more or less, that girl's face. Other than that and the girl's metal folding chair, there wasn't much to be seen - a neutral-coloured dark blue curtain closed off his little cubicle of this hospital. "Well... you're not my regular doctor... where am I?"

"Where do you think you are?" Perfect English.

Daniel blinked, looking around again. "... I don't know. I was kind of in a situation where I couldn't be sure where I'd end up..."

The girl scooted her chair forward, leaning in, interested. "Really? What kind of situation?"

Daniel opened his mouth... and then closed it. "... I'd... love to tell you, but I can't. I don't know who you are."

She cocked her head, just slightly. "... I am Marita Grace." Odd name, given her apparent ethnicity. 'Marita' was a very... Germanic and Baltic iteration of 'Maria' or 'Margaret', it was almost never used any further east than Finland. Then again, it wasn't like she would be the first person to have a name from outside her ancestral cultural group.

"Ah, sorry!" Daniel jerked to a sitting position... or rather, tried to.

Like oiled lightning, the girl - Marita - was standing almost as soon as he started rising, slender hands pressing against his chest with a surprising strength and preventing him from rising any higher than a mere centimeter off the bed. "Please don't move too much. Your shoulder isn't healed yet. I know the painkillers are preventing you from feeling it, but if you move around too much you might tear something... Okay?"

Daniel looked into her dark eyes. "... Okay." He nodded once. "Can I have my glasses?"

In answer, she reached over him to the tray, picked up the glasses, and handed them to him.

He smiled, taking them and putting them on. "Thanks." He slumped back, relaxing into the bed. It was a really, really comfortable bed. He needed to get one of these for home.

Her cheeks reddened, and she skipped back with that same slightly unnerving speed, returning to her seat and folding her hands again, with an almost hypnotic precision and smoothness of motion. "... What's... what's your name?" Her voice sounded oddly tentative all of a sudden.

Daniel blinked, and chuckled. "I'm Daniel Jackson."

"What do you do, Mister Jackson?" She paused, holding up her hands. "I mean normally! Not the kinds of things you can't tell me about!"

Daniel smiled again. "Don't worry, I understand... and you can call me Daniel. Okay, Miss-"

"You can call me Marita," she interrupted, looking down and not meeting his eyes. "... Mister Ja... daniel..." She barely whispered out his name, sounding almost embarrassed.

He nodded, smiling. Seemed they were building up a bit of a rapport... now if he could just conveniently work this around to the topic of where he was, and for that matter where everyone else was... Well, may as well answer her question. That certainly wasn't classified. "I'm actually an archaeologist."

"Oh, really...? What's your area of study?"

Daniel grinned ruefully. "To be honest, I like it all. My professors, um, insisted I narrow down for my later studies, so I went into Egyptology." He paused. "You, uh, might have heard of the crazy Doctor Jackson."

Marita shook her head. "I'm... afraid I don't really follow archaeology..."

"Ah, good! I'm not starting at a disadvantage, then."

"You don't... seem crazy..."

"Apparently, I'm very, very good at hiding it."

Marita paused. "... Is it something to do with the Stargate?"

Daniel's eyes widened and he jerked up in shock - or, tried to, Marita was _again_ disquietingly fast and stopping him from moving more than a few centimeters. "How do you know about that?" Wait. Denial. He was supposed to deny and play it off... he _knew_ this, why was his brain slowing down...?

"... The President made an address not long ago... your name was mentioned... I didn't know it was... well... you, until just now."

Daniel blinked. _Disclosure, already...? Well, it's not surprising after an attack..._ "Oh... uh. You know... I don't actually know how much of that I can talk about, so I really shouldn't go in detail..."

Marita leaned over him. "What's it like... daniel?" She kind of whispered his name again.

Daniel shook his head, leaning back into the bed. "You know I can't talk about the details, but... it's absolutely fascinating. I mean, I love learning about societies and ways of life, and here are these completely new cultures that _nobody_ has ever encountered before..." He shook his head. "I've... been babbling again. It's, uh, not that I'm not enjoying the conversation, but... where are my friends?" He closed his eyes, frowning. He remembered... water. Yelling... something sweet-smelling in the air...

Marita stepped back. "Your friends...?"

He nodded absently, trying to make sense of the memory. "Jack O'Neill, Samantha Carter, Teal'c...? They'd have been in the same uniform as me... you didn't find them?"

She nodded. "I think we did. We found three others dressed the same, but they haven't woke up yet."

"Can I see them?"

She planted her hands on her hips, simply _looking_ at him. "If you move you're liable to tear open your shoulder. They're your _unit_. They'll want to see you probably as soon as they wake up. I'll bring them then."

Daniel froze. 'Unit'. She hadn't said 'friends', or 'comrades'... she'd said 'unit', as if it meant the same thing... or more, to her. Coupled with her sheer speed, fitness, and... not to make a bad pun, but, grace. She was a soldier, whether she was in a uniform or not. And now he was remembering... he'd only been half-conscious, but they'd been gassed, after Apophis's ship crashed. "... I'm a prisoner, aren't I?"

Marita nodded, smoothly taking her seat again. "For the moment. You really are injured, so if you're going to try and escape, at least wait until you've recovered a little."

... This conversation was starting to unnerve him. This was an interrogation, but her attitude was far too friendly for... "Daniel Jackson. Archaeologist contractor. I don't know if I have a serial number."

Marita frowned, shaking her head. "... daniel... I'm not going to hurt you."

"Daniel Jackson. Archaeologist contractor. I don't know if I have a serial number." It was really awkward for a civilian to do the 'name, rank, and serial number' bit. He needed a rank and serial number, maybe he'd ask General Hammond for one when he got back.

She closed her eyes, nodding, and stood, leaning over him, reaching to the tray table. "Do you want to eat? You've been out for a while."

"Daniel Jackson. Archaeologist contractor. I don't know if I have a serial number," he repeated again. He'd turn this into a mantra or a song if he had to, he was _not_ leaking any more information than he already had.

"... Okay." She exhaled heavily, stepping back towards the curtain, and reaching for what seemed to be a zipper. She unzipped the curtain, and looked back at him. "... I don't know if you'll believe me, but... I'm glad I didn't kill you, Daniel..." She stepped out, closing the curtain behind her.

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

The gate opened with its traditional unstable vortex of energies, drawing the attention of everyone arrayed around the Alpha Camp.

Janet Fraiser looked in that direction, fumbling in her pack for her radio. Most everyone else stared as well, though those who had weapons to hand brought them up, aiming at the gate, as the waterlike surface placidly rippled.

It was only when Janet's radio flared up with General Hammond's voice that the guards relaxed. "This is General Hammond, calling Alpha Site." There was a generalized whoop around the camp.

Janet smiled, leaning over to the radio. "This is Alpha Site, we read you General. We were starting to think it was time to bury the gate."

"Well, the world is safe for now, Doctor... I think."

"Well, that's certainly comforting."

Hammond chuckled shortly. "Let's just say it's complicated and too long to explain over radio. It took us a while to sort out, but it seems stable enough for now. The gould attack has been stopped, so Alpha teams are free to come on back home now."

Janet nodded. "We'll get right on that."

"Oh, and you might want to come with the first group. Colonel Samuels has a broken nose and could probably do with some medical attention."

Janet coughed.

"It was no one at this command. The President is dealing with a public relations disaster thanks to Samuels, so..."

"... I suppose it's been a stressful week for everyone."

"We'd all appreciate if you could get home as soon as possible."

Janet winced. Samuels was whining, wasn't he? "I'll be there in a few minutes, General. I didn't really unpack."

"Perfect. Hammond out, I'll see you on the other side."

Janet shook her head, packing away the radio and picking up her pack, moving towards the gate. "Come on, everyone, get ready to go back home."

Given that everyone was listening in, it didn't take very long before the green-uniformed soldiers and volunteers were packed around in front of the gate. Despite the importance of their mission at the Alpha Site, near-on everyone here would much, much prefer to be home. The forested world was beautiful, to be sure, but it was no Earth. This eagerness was tempered by nobody wanting to get cut in half as the gate shut down, so it was a fairly small, limited group of two dozen - they'd simply dial, hop through, and then message back once the gate room was clear for the next group.

Janet was the closest to the DHD, so she reached out, pressing the familiar sequence of symbols, and was easily rewarded by the formation of the wormhole. She glanced to Lieutenant Williams as he transmitted the IDC through the event horizon, and then waved the group onward.

In a short, disciplined surge, the group strode through the gate, Janet slinging her pack onto her back and following after them.

The lighting change, as they transitioned from out in the open under an alien sun to inside a hardened military room, was more or less instant, and Janet ran into the back of one of the civilian specialists - Jeffrey Soren.

She knew more or less immediately why they'd come to a stop. This... wasn't the Gate Room. The room was too big. Far, far too big. It was still military construction, but...

Well, really, what decided her on the place being wrong was the dozens of bewildered-looking people, mostly dressed in technician overalls, and every single one of them, despite the clear confusion on their faces, aiming what were unmistakably firearms at the Alpha Team clustered in front of the Stargate.

The one closest to the gate was the first one to shake himself, and shout "Drop everything, and hands behind your heads!"

He was a young man, early twenties or so, and more than anything else reminded Janet of a pixie. Small, dainty build, slender, shorter even than her, almost completely lacking in muscle. Slightly wavy black hair, and thin glasses over hazel eyes. Frankly, he looked even less intimidating than Daniel Jackson, and the pain she could read in his stance holding the pistol up didn't help - he seemed wounded. A rough-hewn-looking iron ring decorated his right little finger over the black gloves he wore. His voice was much more impressive than his physical appearance, rich and powerful, and there was something oddly familiar about his accent...

On the other hand, his grip on the large pistol-like weapon grasped in his hands was rock-steady, his gaze was straight, and his aim didn't waver. And then there were, of course, the many other... technicians? This looked like a hangar... But whatever their job, they were all armed and aiming at the Alpha Team.

Janet dropped her bag, bringing up her hands. This didn't _look_ like the goa'uld, and frankly, even if it were, this wasn't a combat team, and none of them had weapons ready. Better to surrender now and look for a better opportunity. "... Who are you people?" Not to mention information.

The petite young man drifted his aim over the rest of the group until everyone's belongings had thumped to the floor, and then turned to her. "Specialist Alexander Walther, Shadow Mirror. I should ask you that, too. And everyone take ten steps to the left - your left, not mine." His sidearm didn't lower, though he twitched it to indicate which way to go. Probably wanted them away from the gate for now.

Janet stepped in that direction, followed sooner or later by the rest of the Alpha Team. "Doctor Janet Fraiser, United States Air Force." Janet looked down, noting further evidence that this wasn't the right address - there was a DHD right beside Specialist Walther. She must have misdialed... "I understand this probably looks bad, but we're not here to harm anyone." On the plus side, this was at least an industrialized-level human culture, maybe she'd accidentally found them some allies? The gate whooshed shut behind her.

Walther simply raised an eyebrow, humming to himself. "... This is a 'Stargate', isn't it?" He jerked his head slightly, and several of the other overall-clad people - mix of men and women, and a wider array of ethnicities than usually encountered on any individual planet - came up to take the Alpha Team's packs, and the few weapons.

Janet nodded. "I'm surprised you call it that, as I understand the more common term is 'chappa'ai'..." ... Then again, it was surprising enough they spoke English. Almost everyone yet encountered in the galaxy spoke dialects of ancient Egyptian, to the point where knowing the language was more or less a requirement to serving at the SGC - even Colonel O'Neill knew it, despite the 'dunce' image he tried to cultivate, apparently having spent the three years since the Abydos mission studying.

Walther seemed to look longingly at the gate and DHD for a moment, before snapping his gaze back to Janet. "I'm going to ask you this once, in good faith. Explosives, poison, disease... is there _anything_ that could constitute a danger in your luggage?"

Janet shook her head. "Medical supplies." She looked around at the rest, who all shook their heads.

Walther nodded, and the techs moved out of view with the equipment packs. "How does it work?" He gestured with his pistol. "The Stargate."

Janet raised an eyebrow. "I'm afraid I'm not really in the habit of sharing strategic information with people pointing guns at me." Walther glanced down at his pistol, flushed slightly, but didn't lower it. "Our usual policy is to open up basic-level diplomatic negotiations, and share addresses with trustworthy partners."

She looked beyond him. Near the back of the immense room, there was a huge, humanoid construct. She'd eyeball it in the fourty-to-fifty meters height range, seemingly horned, boasting red and blue objects that looked almost like 'jewels' embedded in the metallic skin, and numerous blades across the arms, shoulders, and head... painted a dark blue, with the blades a cold grey. A _very_ industrialized human culture, making something that size was impressive enough, if it actually moved it was mind-boggling.

Walther nodded. "Well, that's fair enough."

A slim, short-haired girl, perhaps eighteen, in civilian dress - a yellow shirt and grayish skirt - strode into the room, up behind Walther. She glanced at Janet. "Let them go, Walther."

He paused, looking oddly at the younger girl. "Are you sure, Miss Grace?" At her nod, he lowered his arms, waving slightly. "Go ahead, Doctor Fraiser."

Janet blinked. Well... she wasn't going to complain about getting set free. She moved up to the DHD. _... Better not dial Earth. They're certainly watching this._ She didn't want to compromise Alpha either, so she strained to remember a relatively uninhabited world - she didn't step offworld all that often, but one came to mind, and she dialed it in, calmly pressing the buttons. Each one made the chevron 'thunk' into place, and upon finding the Point of Origin symbol - a pair of crossed arrows - she was awarded with the unstable vortex, and a solid gate. Janet paused, looking around at the Alpha personnel. "Nobody packed anything we need to worry about them keeping, right?"

Everyone shook their heads. Good, they'd done what they were supposed to, then.

She looked back to Walther. "Um, we're going to need one of our GDO transmitters. Looks like a remote control?" They were going to have to change their codes once they got home, to be sure. But she rather doubted they could get them back and be sure they hadn't been compromised.

The girl - Miss Grace? - nodded, walking out. It was a few moments later before she came back with a GDO in hand, and tossed it to Janet - she caught it easily enough, turning back to the gate and waving everyone through.

She'd _try_ to remember what she'd misdialed, and maybe they could make later contact with these people - they were certainly more advanced (and thus, though she hated to think of it that way, more useful) than the Land of Light, and friendlier than the Tollan. Maybe negotiations without firearms would work a bit better and Earth would wind up with its first real, solid ally out in the galaxy, but she was no diplomat and really just wanted to get home and leave it to the brass.

After the remainder of the team was through the gate and across the stars, she moved through, and immediately walked up to the DHD. The gate closed behind her before too long.

She waved Doctor Soren over. "The address for Earth is this, right?" She pointed out the appropriate symbols.

He nodded, smirking slightly. "Try to get it right this time."

"Hey, my mistakes put us in contact with highly advanced potential allies. Beat that." She smiled, dialing Earth. She transmitted the identification code as soon as the gate opened, and then moved through with the rest of the Alpha Team.

"... What."

Specialist Walther gave her a little wave. "Looks like only one gate per planet can receive, right Doctor Fraiser?"

She nodded shakily, stepping away from the gate as more of the Alpha Team came through. "Yes, but..."

"Welcome to Earth. 'fraid we're going to have to take you in custody. No harm meant, but we can't just have foreign personnel wandering about our Ark. Hope you understand. We don't mean to be impolite about it."

Janet just slowly shook her head, raising her hands. That 'about' sealed why his manner of speech sounded familiar. It was Canadian. When had Canada got hold of a Stargate? She'd apparently stepped through into the Twilight Zone...

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Jack O'Neill shook his head, looking around. He had to admit, this was probably the most comfortable prison he'd ever been in - of course, he knew it was a prison. They'd been gassed unconscious... presumably by a local salvage team, or the mystery ship that had been stomping Apophis. And circumstances of arriving here aside, they were locked in.

It looked like standard military officer quarters, though much more spacious than usual for them. Not all drab, but not personalized, neutral grey/beige walls. The bed he'd woken up on was ridiculously comfortable, in fact. Drawers under the bed, empty. Closet, holding clothes in his size, which he'd taken advantage of due to waking up unclothed - he felt a little violated and all, but it made sense, his captors would've had to make sure he didn't have a bomb in his undies, and he probably _would_ have if they made them small enough to be comfortable in there. Desk across from the bed - drawers were empty except for basic office supplies, paper and a somewhat funky-looking pen, and a keyboard and mouse in one. All the furniture was done up in a gunmetal-grey sheen, even the bed, which he could attest to not being metal.

Across from the door was a window, showing a clear, blue sky... or rather, it looked like a window. Carter had fingered it a bit and reported it was a video screen, though a spectacularly, ridiculously high-fidelity one. O'Neill had actually found the controls, and switched the 'channel' a few times - it also showed mountains, a forested meadow so peaceful it was almost sickening, an underwater view, an 'awesome view from space' consisting of a close-up of what looked like Saturn... He hadn't found all its settings yet.

The door itself wasn't actually locked, either, as Teal'c demonstrated when he walked in - it slid aside for him. "O'Neill. I have completed my exploration of the rooms available to us."

Jack nodded, turning to him. "Whatcha got, buddy? Find Daniel?"

The large man shook his head slowly. "I am afraid not, O'Neill. None of the unlocked rooms held him. I was also unable to locate Master Bra'tac."

Jack tsked. "Dammit... where the hell is he? I swear, if these punks scratched him..." He shook his head. "They probably split off Bra'tac. If they didn't know about us, they'd assume Bra'tac and his boys were just another set of jaffa, going by uniforms... What about the rest?"

"A block of twenty-two rooms. Twenty of those rooms are personal quarters such as these." He nodded around at O'Neill's room. "The two in the center are service rooms. One is a lavatory and washroom, split by gender. The other appears to be a small kitchen. The food within resembles Earth fare."

"Door at either end of the hall is locked off? How's Carter doing on them?"

"I am uncertain."

Jack grinned. "Then let's go check on her."

The jaffa acquiesced with a nod, and stepped out of the room, followed soon enough by Jack. The hallway outside was similarly decorated to the inside of the room, plain, functional walls and floor, with thin seams all across them, stretching to the left and the right, with doors on both sides. Towards the left end of the hallway, the compact blonde form of Captain Samantha Carter was crouched, shaking her head.

"Problems, Carter?"

She stood up, dusting off her hands. "There's no way I'm going to be hotwiring these doors open. I'm pretty sure there's wiring behind these panels, but the seal is too tight to pull off. Maybe with some basic tools, but there's not much here. Whoever has us did a good job clearing this place out."

Jack hummed in thought. "Knives and forks from the kitchen?"

"Plastic," Teal'c rumbled.

"The fiends." He scratched the back of his neck. "Just going to have to get creative with pots, pans, tupperware, and drawers, then, and wait for a better opportunity. And maybe at least meeting our mysterious captors. At least the quarters are comfortable. 'cause we're probably gonna be staying a while." Jack would prefer not to be talking in detail about potential escape plans, to be honest - he was quite sure they were being watched by camera or microphone, though he hadn't had much luck in finding them. But they still needed to communicate.

"Indeed they are, O'Neill. My usual living quarters at the SGC are less well-appointed," Teal'c noted.

"Apparently it's a classy prison. Any idea what else we've got?"

Carter tapped a button next to their position, and one of the doors on the side of the hall whooshed open. She stepped through, waving the men after her. "I went exploring the rooms a bit. Did you know we have computers?"

Jack blinked, following her into the room. "Huh. Really? Are they hidden?"

"Out of the way." She walked up to the desk, leaning over and pressing down on a metallic projection built into it, right around where it met the room's back wall. A large, flat screen snapped into existence in midair, presumably holographic, lighting up with a 'Welcome, Restricted User' display in a number of languages. Or at least Jack presumed the unfamiliar ones said the same thing, he was hardly omnilingual like Daniel. Carter reached under the desk, pulling out a drawer with keyboard and mouse.

Teal'c raised an eyebrow. "This is... unusual."

Carter cocked her head. "I admit I wasn't expecting us to get computers, let alone with a holographic display like this, but what's unusual about it?"

Jack glanced at the keyboard. "Well, the keyboard's in English... I thought we got scooped up by whoever was stomping on Apophis, which would be manifestly not from Earth."

Carter's eyes widened. "... Why didn't I..." She looked down at it. "And it's a QWERTY layout... that should _not_ be universal... it's an Earth-based typewriter standard dating back to 1873, it's only in use because it's-"

Jack raised a hand. "Okay, we get it, I'll take typewriter history later... so you're saying this keyboard has no damn right being off Earth, right?"

"Basically, yes sir. I'd say if this thing's here, we didn't get picked up by the alien ship." She tapped her cheek. "I was assuming so since the 'window' screens were beyond state of the art, not to mention the holographic computer screen, but they're not _completely_ impossible... just way too expensive for something like this."

Jack nodded, folding his arms. "So, we were underwater, and we got picked up by locals. Any ideas who it is?" Jack's first instinct was to say 'the Russians', after thirty damn years of Cold War military service, but he was open to newer, fresher, and more-prone-to-thought opinions.

Carter shook her head. "Nothing that really comes to mind, sir. I could guess, but I'd just be listing countries, and for all we know this could be a corporation or criminal group. Nothing distinctive that I can spot. It could be anyone from the NID to the Yakuza."

"It is also possible this 'QWERTY layout' of which you speak was divined from our minds prior to our awakening," Teal'c noted. "Which would permit it to once more be the ship confronting Apophis."

Carter frowned. "Psychic abilities have never been satisfactorily proven. That sounds like something out of science fiction."

"We're discussing whether or not we're on a spaceship, dear."

"... So?"

Jack paused. "... Okay, point. But we're getting away from the important things."

"What could be more important than our captors, O'Neill?" Teal'c rumbled.

"We've got to get out of here before I miss another episode of the Simpsons. I was only set up to tape the one!" Jack was good at holding back the smirk as Teal'c eyebrow rose and Carter almost tripped.

The screen flashed for a moment, and then the ever-familiar opening animation began to play.

Jack stared. "Oh you can not be serious."

Carter's jaw was open for a bit, before she got that... giggly new-tech look on her face. "Intelligent voice recognition software, and... did it actually queue up the right episode?"

Jack just kind of _looked_ at her. "It's barely started, and I haven't watched it at home either. How would I know?" He paused, holding up a hand to keep the others quiet. He heard something. People moving, not too far away.

Teal'c stared blankly at him for a moment, before nodding in understanding. He'd heard it too. The sound of military boots stomping against metal flooring... strangely in unison. They sounded like a drill performance. Carter's expression was blank, not catching it, until a nearby door slid open, allowing the marching group to move into their prison block.

Jack gestured to the closet beside the room's door - understanding quickly, Carter and Teal'c hid there. Jack stayed out in front, as distraction when whoever it was came in.

He frowned as they waited. Something felt... cold, about the soldiers on the other side. He couldn't even see them, and he _knew_ the temperature hadn't changed, but there was a strange... empty feeling. It felt wrong, and he didn't even know _why_.

And then the door slid open, and Jack blinked, absently holding up a hand to hold off his subordinates.

Janet Fraiser stepped in, blinking herself. "... Colonel O'Neill?"

Carter came out from hiding. "... Janet? What are you doing here?"

Fraiser shook her head as Teal'c came out of his own position, presumably noting the intended ambush was spoiled anyway. "I don't even know... General Hammond cleared us to come back from Alpha Site, and when we dialed Earth, we ended up here. A huge amount of armed techs captured us, and they brought us here."

Jack looked beyond her - noting the Alpha team members moving through the hall behind Fraiser, and beyond them, the first glimpse of their captors. His first instinct was 'not from Earth'. Each moved in unison, dressed in a black bodysuit, tied with a red belt, with a red-and-grey chest plate armour over the torso, a blank-faced helmet with no slits or visors or any other possible way to see through - he presumed cameras, the area over the eyes looked a little like that - with what was either utility pockets or extra plates of armour or both strapped over the hips, knee-length boots of the same metallic or ceramic construction as the armour plate and helmet, and some kind of red boxy construct strapped over each forearm. No apparent weapons, but Jack would bet those forearm blocks were it.

Now seeing them move in cold unison, without paying the slightest attention to him and Fraiser beyond the basic 'do we need to shoot you?' awareness of presence, Jack knew exactly where his 'empty' feeling had come from. These weren't soldiers. He wasn't even sure they were people.

"Wait, they have a Stargate?" Carter interrupted.

"While it is not a common practice, Klorel's ha'tak carried a chappa'ai," Teal'c noted. "The forces who confronted Apophis may well have done the same."

"Forces who... what?" Oh right, Fraiser had been off-planet while things had been getting really crazy, she still didn't have a clue. They'd have to explain it to her later...

"Or Appie may've been carrying one himself, and they hauled it out of his ship along with us," Jack added. "Still leaves us at square one and no idea who these people are." Well... he assumed there were people somewhere in here, at least.

Fraiser looked around. "... Where's Doctor Jackson? Did he...?"

Carter shook his head. "We don't know... he was okay right up until we got captured, but we were unconscious... I have no idea where he is."

"I'll bring you to him," a female voice stated, as a short-haired girl in civilian dress flowed around the corner, into the doorway.

Jack jolted slightly. He hadn't even heard her in all the noise from Alpha and the freaktastic red soldiers. And... the way she stood, weight lightly balanced, ready to move instantly in any direction. The way she'd casually moved around the corner, viewing the room from cover before stepping out. The calm, disinterested way her eyes scanned the room, evaluating everything and then unfocusing, simply tracking motion without paying any real attention to colours and expressions. It was the same way he moved, the same way he looked at things when he was ready to fight.

This chick was too damn young to move like that. Eighteen years old, maybe, far too young to have the experience and confidence for it. And that marked her as the most dangerous opponent in the room, despite the freaky red soldiers, and the fact that he couldn't see a weapon on her.

He glanced at Teal'c, and saw an acknowledgement. Carter, however, seemed to be bracing, and he shook his head, just slightly. He was pretty sure he or Teal'c could take this kid, but Carter was just a good soldier, not a monster like him and Teal'c. And with what he could guess of her skill, the fight wouldn't be quick enough even with all three of them. Only way they'd get out of this would be taking the apparent commander hostage, and if they couldn't suppress her quick enough, the red soldiers would riddle them with gunfire.

Jack held out his hands. "Will ya now? I'm up for that. Remember to give him all his vitamins?" Now wasn't the time for their escape, but it'd come.

The girl twitched slightly, gesturing for them to follow her. "We split him off into the medical bay. His injuries aren't life-threatening, just uncomfortable."

SG-1, and Doctor Fraiser, settled in behind her, with a small phalanx of the 'empty' soldiers moving into position around them. "Doctor Jackson was injured? I'm his doctor, let me take a look."

"That's fine."

"What of Master Bra'tac?" Teal'c queried.

She shook her head. "Don't know. The other prisoners aren't awake from the knockout gas yet."

"So... who are you people?" Jack had to ask.

"Warrant Officer Marita Grace."

"I meant more in a collective sense."

"Shadow Mirror. I'm not at liberty to say more at this stage." Which meant military, or paramilitary. Fun.

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Senator Robert Kinsey didn't need to fight to hide his grin. Not that he didn't feel like grinning, but he'd been at this business well long enough to get used to hiding his inappropriate emotions, so there wasn't much effort.

He'd _told_ them the Stargate was a waste of good funds, and now look at it. Whole thing had gone and blown up a hundred thousand Russians. And now the President had egg all over his face.

He shook his head ruefully. Barely a week after disclosure, and an international conference was already in play - though admittedly rushed, they'd basically started as soon as all the bigger players arrived. Oh, the Russians claimed it was to open discussions regarding the alien threat, but Robert could tell the real reason.

Someone needed to take the fall for this. Someone in the United States. Fortunately, Kinsey's position as one of the few political figures briefed on the Stargate Program had marked him as America's primary representative at this conference... which meant he could deflect the international pressure off himself, and onto the people who merited it.

Of course, they'd sent along a trained diplomat as well to serve as a minder. Poor Joseph Faxon, the man had just heard of all this lunacy a week ago, and now he was expected to _do_ something about it, defend and advance the interests of the United States despite having a minimal clue what was going on.

"I think what we need to concern ourselves with is the civilian reaction," Faxon spoke up from beside Kinsey. "Has everyone heard that 'Cerberus' manifesto that started circulating last week?"

Andrei Volkov nodded. Robert supposed this was evidence that the Russian was still used to being a flunky - he was acting President of Russia, but was still coming out to things like this personally. "The 'What mankind needs in these times is a guardian beast, a 'Cerberus' to stand against what comes from beyond the gates of Pluto' one?"

Faxon nodded. "Every known language, e-mailed to everyone on the planet, and hardcopies circulating... whoever did this had a lot of resources. And that's the concern I mean - the Cerberus Manifesto is saying 'destroy the enemies of Earth, at and away from home, by all means necessary'. It's a serious hardline reaction, and if even a handful of people agree with it, we're going to have problems - in interstellar diplomacy if they get out, and at home if we take any actions short of razing the fields and salting the earth."

Robert snorted. "Ignore it. It's just an illusionary pipe dream written by some illusive man. He can talk all he wants, but until he acts, it's just blowing smoke, and a few typewriters are hardly the resources they'd need to cause any level of trouble." Not that he disagreed with the principle of 'whatever it takes to advance our position', given his... contacts. He just didn't want too much attention drawn to it the way this extremist loon did.

China's Wen Qinglin spoke up with a frown. "I would _recommend_ that we at least come to some manner of agreement on how to deal with these... goa'uld... so that we can handle this sentiment internationally. It will spread rapidly unless we act."

"Russia's position has already been made clear," Volkov noted. "We will not surrender, and hostilities will continue until the goa'uld have made reparation for their strike on Moscow." He paused, standing up. "I suppose this is as good a time as any to announce - I have authorized a mass conversion program of Russia's strategic weapons arsenal. Only one quarter of our intercontinental ballistic missiles will remain Earth-capable. All others will be converted to attack targets in outer space."

Robert's eyes widened, and he leaned forward. "That is a clear violation of-"

"The Outer Space Treaty. Correct." Volkov nodded. "While under the circumstances I would prefer that treaty's terms be altered in light of the discovery of threats from beyond Earth, for now, we will remove the nuclear warheads and replace them with conventional weapons. I would be pleased to offer an open invitation to international inspectors to confirm our compliance with the treaty. Whatever our past differences, these aliens are a threat to us all. By our enemies, we are made allies." He offered a bow before lowering back into his seat.

Faxon looked like he wanted to cry, leaning forward and massaging his head, muttering "This is just my second day..."

Kinsey cleared his throat. "This issue is likely to take days to discuss on its own. Let's table it for now, and move on to the real issue at hand. What are we doing, now that we know the Earth is surrounded by aliens who want to destroy it?"

Ng... Trong, the Vietnamese man, Robert couldn't be bothered to remember that whole long name, spoke. "Actually, I believe the Outer Space Treaty does merit a bit of discussion at this point. Your President said a week ago, he was using it to find offworld allies, technologies, and resources to reinforce the United States. Need I quote the OST? 'The exploration and use of outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development, and shall be the province of all mankind.' This is the very first article of it, and yet you have been operating the Stargate for a _year_ without having apparently bothered to read a treaty your own nation insisted on in the first place! Even the means you used to do it was a direct violation of the common heritage of mankind concept - it was _looted_ from an archaeological site in Egypt."

Hosni Ebeid, the Egyptian representative, coughed into his hand. "You can give it back any time now. It would be unnecessary to demand recompense as well." ... Robert couldn't actually tell if he was joking or not.

Faxon shook his head. "I wasn't there at the time, but from the briefing I've received, the Stargate was feared to be a potential weapon. The Second World War was in swing at the time, so it was moved to secure it from the Nazis."

Ebeid nodded. "For which we thank you. The Nazis have now been gone for fifty years. As has the Stargate. Protective custody turns into theft if you don't give it back."

"I appreciate your concerns, Ambassador Ebeid, but... look. We can't just give it away. Our operators have experience with interstellar exploration and operation of the Stargate. And the gate is literally the only defence anyone on this planet has against the gould, or whatever else may be out there."

Volkov stood, taking a breath. "Ambassador Faxon, I cannot speak for any other nations. But I have no objection to General Hammond remaining in command of Stargate Command, nor to retaining United States personnel. They have experience, they know the work. But..." He shook his head, running a hand through his red hair. "The men and women who walk through the gate are not the representatives of the United States to the galaxy at large. They are the representatives of _Earth_, and all its peoples. The United States does not have a right to make negotiations on behalf of all of us, to negotiate treaties in the name of Earth without even a minor consultation to the billions of others they will be affecting... And as you have said... it is the only weapon anyone on this planet has. Without access, there is very little any non-American on the planet can do to defend themselves."

Faxon winced. "I... apologize for that, and I'll consider passing it back to my superiours, but..."

Volkov smiled, taking a seat. "It's not that we blame the US for keeping it secret. It's a powerful advantage, and let us all be honest - any nation here would have done the same if they thought they could get away with it. My own included." His gaze swept across the room, lingering on the US table, and the Chinese. "But it's no longer secret... and the United States has no greater claim on it than any other nation. If Egypt really wishes to reclaim it, they do possess the legal right, but I believe we would all rather it be shared by all nations."

Robert nodded, with a heavy, theatrical sigh. "Believe me, Mister President, I know how you feel. I have made my protests regarding the operation of the Stargate time and time again. When this was first brought to my attention, I _insisted_ that the gate was too dangerous to remain in operation." He considered continuing on how he had successfully had it shut down, but the timing of the whole thing would look... bad. "The Ancient Egyptians successfully held off the gould for thousands of years, simply by burying the gate."

Volkov's gaze stopped him from going further. Something about that stare made him... worry. But when Volkov spoke, his voice was mild, calm, and gentle. "How is it, Senator Kinsey, that your words mean the exact opposite of mine, and yet you claim to agree with me?"

Robert swallowed, shaking off the sudden chill. "I sympathize, Mister Presi-"

"Director," Volkov interrupted, with a single upraised index finger indicating he wanted to speak. "I will only claim to be a President when and if I have been elected, Senator."

Robert nodded. "Okay... Mister Director, I... I sympathize. Because of the decisions made in secret by our own military, our planet is facing imminent danger... I understand, and I promise that I will take whatever actions I can to fix this."

"No, Senator. While you may sympathize, you do not understand." Volkov just shook his head. "This is not about danger. Danger is acceptable. It's a great deal simpler than that. My concern is about the United States unilaterally making such decisions on behalf of the entire world without consulting, or even any apparent concern for, the five point five billion _not American_ people on that world. Burying the gate is simply another way of exerting that unilateral control without consulting anyone else. We wish to participate. Not take the gate away from you, but contribute to absorbing the risks and costs, both in life and money."

Robert frowned slightly. He'd prefer a full shutdown of the Egypt gate, it would then get out of the way of his 'contacts' operating the Antarctica gate, and make him look great. With it going public, it'd be much more difficult to exert control over the Egypt gate. Still... this part of the conference was recorded and going to be publicized, so he'd look even worse if he pressed on that tack. "I agree with you. I'll be sure to pass your arguments up and down the chain of command, and we'll see what I can do."

Volkov chuckled, picking up a set of folders from his table and passing it to an adjutant. "I will say that we're not expecting to simply be _given_ all this. I am prepared to match the American contribution, dollar for dollar, man for man. And now that we've seen pictures of the gate, it seems we have a contribution to match the American possession of the gate and knowledge of its operating characteristics. The files I'm having passed around detail this."

Robert frowned, taking the folder passed into his hands and flipping it open, then sucking in a breath. "You have a DHD?"

Volkov nodded. "What you call a 'Dial Home Device', yes. We apparently picked it up from the Nazi storehouses back in 1945. I've contacted the people researching it, and it seems we have more or less entirely decoded its programming, and are making some fair progress on understanding how its systems work. They assure me a final understanding of the mechanism will likely ensue almost immediately after they are able to pair it up with the gate and information the Americans have of its operations. I am prepared to hand the DHD and all our research on it over to any jointly operated Stargate Command."

Qinglin looked askance at Volkov. "Director, not five minutes ago you were just talking about the United States reserving the gate and using it without international consensus... and now you reveal that the Russian Federation has had half of the system in its possession for just as long and using it with no more international oversight than the Americans have had?"

"Allow me to point out, Ambassador. We spent fifty years researching the thing. It was a magic button machine. A control system for a device that we did not possess. There was very little we could do with it, beyond reverse-engineering the systems - a fancy, long-lasting battery, some high-density information storage and powerful computers, and coding so bad I had to skim a hundred-page rant about it. We had no idea what it was, and let's say we gave it back as an archaeological artifact... to who? Ahnenerbe did not keep records on where they got the thing." Volkov nodded to the Egyptian representative. "Now, we know, and you're free to request it, as well as the Stargate, back."

Ebeid raised an eyebrow, stroking his cheek. "I must say, your ideas tempt me... It is true that you and the Americans possess more information on the operation of this device than we do. I will pass it upward and see what we have. It's quite an expense to operate, it seems."

Trong nodded. "I can give Vietnam's tentative agreement to the Russian international operation proposal. We cannot match the dollar for dollar contribution, but we can certainly add our own."

Robert tsked. "I can see your point, and will pass it to the President, but I'm not so sure the United States Air Force is the best group to remain in command of the gate... there have been some serious issues so far, with the bombardment of Moscow just the most recent. And most severe," he added. Best to placate the guy. "I would seriously recommend a civilian top secret oversight agency replace them - the National Intelligence Directorate." That would actually probably be a better coup for him and his contacts than shutting down the SGC, and he was a little embarrassed he'd only just thought of it.

Volkov waved a hand in dismissal of the matter. "Who remains in command of the United States contribution is a matter of concern for the United States. I expect no say in the matter, I'll only get insistent about it if you keep us cut out and we have to depend on them as the planet's primary line of defence. But then, at that point I'll be insistent about a great deal more."

Robert frowned. How was he supposed to respond to that? It was incredibly difficult to use international pressure to get what he wanted when the other nations outright said they didn't care. And Volkov had been so polite about it, phrasing it as a respect for US internal workings, that Robert had no way of bringing it back around to get the pressure for the NID...

Trong nodded. "From what we have seen of the files, the USAF has done competently enough. Perhaps they could do better, but who we work with on your side is really not our concern. If _you_ are concerned by their operations, then evaluate them for yourself. Who you send to our international effort is your business. It only becomes our business if you decide to keep the gate, the potential benefits of the gate, and the use of the gate for self-defence to yourselves." That was probably one of the more tactful veiled threats Robert Kinsey had ever heard.

Robert hummed in agreement, nodding. To be honest, while the international pressure idea had been a bust, he could still get the NID control. And conducting an inspection of the SGC wasn't a bad idea. Sure, this whole mess wasn't their fault, but if he could put the burden of proof on them and make it _look_ like it, and ideally get the President with that brush as well, he and the NID would look great to the public and were quite, quite likely to get control of the gate, as well as disabling the SGC from pursuing their grudge against him.

Though that was a topic for later. For now, continue negotiating and see how things were going to go... He doubted the President would keep a hold on the SGC, he was in a bad enough condition with public relations as it was, and they just didn't have any political credit. Maybe they would if the SGC had saved the world a time or two, but not at this point.

Robert took a sip of water, clearing his throat, and set back to work.

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Samantha Carter smiled a little, leaning back against the curtain - the material felt thin, fairly light, but strong, held easily against her weight. It was... extremely relaxing, to find the last member of their team alive and... well, no more injured than he'd been when last they saw him. A little less so, actually, given how he was actually conscious, and much more coherent than before.

True to her word, Grace had brought them here, and backed out of the curtained area to give them some privacy.

Daniel, for his part, was shaking his head, letting Janet check on his shoulder. "I'm telling you, I feel fine."

Janet slowly edged off the bandage, nodding to herself. "Yeah, you feel fine because of all the painkillers they pumped into you. You're a mess, and that girl's been doing you a favour keeping you from moving. I have to give it up for their painkillers, though, the hardest stuff in my shelf would have to knock you out to keep you from feeling this. What did you get hit by?"

Colonel O'Neill blinked, leaning over to look at the wound. "Staff weapon, dead-on... wait, this was a lot bigger yesterday. Or whenever it was."

Janet whistled, slipping the bandage back on. "Then I'll have to give them some more points for medical science. It would take... some time for me to heal this over, though you would get a full recovery. At the rate this wound is shrinking, you'll be back to full in a week." She backed up.

Sam smiled. "That's great news, isn't it Daniel?"

"Yeah." He nodded. A little less exuberant than normal...?

"What's wrong?"

He shook his head. "... I leaked a bit of information. I thought this was a civilian hospital at first, just making conversation... I hope nothing important, but..."

Colonel O'Neill poked him between the eyes. "Relax, Space Monkey. You never talk about strategic details that a hostile force could use anyway."

Daniel rubbed his forehead. "What the hell is a Space Monkey?"

"That's for me to know and you to stay up late at night asking yourself."

Sam covered a smirk. She'd lay money down on him not having an idea either. "So... any idea who has us?"

Daniel shook his head. "All I know right now is that they're human... well, that she's human. That she's _apparently_ human. She's the only one I've see-" He stopped any further clarifications at O'Neill's upraised hand.

"I have not seen the faces of their soldiers, but they appear humanoid as well," Teal'c added.

O'Neill slowly shook his head. "No... the troops are..." He shook his head again. "I dunno. But I'd not call 'em human."

"Troops aside, they have at least a few dozen more human mechanics that captured us," Janet said. "Or at least looking human. One 'Specialist Alexander Walther', if the name rings any bells?"

O'Neill shook his head. "Name hasn't come up in my hearing." Meaning it at least wasn't 'famous' among the black ops community.

"Nor mine," Teal'c stated. "The style of these names is unfamiliar to me. I do not believe I have heard it in my time among the goa'uld."

Sam nodded. "The names sound Earthlike... isn't Walther a gun company?"

O'Neill shrugged. "Well, the gun was named after a guy, and it's not like the guy had a unique name. It's technically pronounced more 'Valter', so this guy obviously ain't as German as his name."

Everyone stared at him for a moment.

"... What?"

Sam shook her head, chuckling. Well, it wasn't like he'd lasted god only knew how long in black ops all across the world, including in Germany, off nothing but a strong punching arm and a borderline-supernatural knack with weapons. "Okay, so... German immigrant?"

"With a Canadian accent," Janet added.

Daniel blinked. "Well... that blows any theories I had out of the water. We've got an ethnic mixed bag here. The gould usually export from a very limited geographic region, so all the offworld populations I've seen so far are more or less ethnically homogenous... That suggests... I don't even know what that suggests."

Samantha looked at Colonel O'Neill. "Should we get out of here, figure it out later?"

He shook his head. "Not just yet." He tapped the curtain with his foot. "This thing blocks us from seeing. We slip out, and it's likely someone's gonna have a clear field of fire on us. For now, let's just rest and think. ... Well, you think, I'll rest."

Sam covered her mouth again to keep from laughing. "Well... okay. I know we've been bouncing around on this, but that's because nothing seems to _fit_ right. On one hand, it doesn't seem right that they're an offworld group. Daniel brings up the ethnic mixing, and they have an Earth-based keyboard layout on their computers - the QWERTY we use is more or less a result of random chance and the standard being in use so long, so I think it's fair to say that the chances of the layout being duplicated are astronomically _against_."

Teal'c nodded. "On the remaining juncture of fingers, their technologies appear far in advance of what the Tau'ri are known to possess. It would seem unusual that the Tau'ri could develop such technologies without you becoming aware of them, would it not?"

Sam nodded. "Exactly."

"So, how do we cross the T here?" O'Neill summed up. "They're too high-tech to be Earth, but they can't be anyone _but_ Earth? So they're... from the future?"

Sam hummed. "... You know, sir, that sounds completely ridiculous, but it's not like our day job sounds any saner. Before I got into the project, I'd probably think 'from the future' was _more_ reasonable than walking through an alien gate to other planets." O'Neill actually looked a little gobsmacked she was taking him seriously.

"So... allies, right?" Daniel queried, looking between them.

"Not necessarily," O'Neill pointed out. "Much as I hate to Godwin us this soon, Hitler was from Earth too."

Janet nodded. "And that's assuming they really are from Earth in the future, isn't it?"

"So for the moment, we are to continue as we have been, correct, O'Neill?"

"Right, T. We try to figure out who these people are for sure, and what their angle is. And most importantly, we try to get the hell out of here."

Samantha was honestly unsure how he'd done it, but with the timing, and his sheer speed, it looked almost prophetic, or magical.

The curtain unzipped, and someone began moving through even as he finished his statement, arms caught by O'Neill and full body whipped around, yanked into the medical cubicle...

It was a matter of a second between the curtain opening and the end of it, and then a young woman was held in front of O'Neill, arms pinned behind her back, sidearm yanked out of a holster at her right hip and pressed up against her temple. She was around her mid-twenties, well-proportioned and fairly athletic in build, with long straight hair that _had_ to be dyed, unless light green was a natural colour and Sam had missed a memo. Dressed in something that looked almost like a uniform, though it looked more like she'd taken a dark-coloured uniform and modified it or foregone parts, unless white bike shorts were a common part of uniforms in the future.

There was something oddly familiar about her face, and the cheerful smirk that refused to drop from it as she was held up in front of Colonel O'Neill, her own sidearm about a finger pull away from killing her - she was even still sucking on the lollipop dangling from her lips. "Soooo, I'm guessing you don't want to tell me anything about the gate, right?"

O'Neill chuckled. "You don't plan on telling us anything about yourselves either, do you?"

The young woman tsked. "An impasse!"

"I dunno, I'm pretty sure with you here, they'll let us pass."

"That's not what it me-"

"Daniel! Teal'c, could you pick him up?"

The bald jaffa nodded, leaning over and gently scooping him off the bed.

O'Neill raised his voice. "Ladies and gentlemen! We're blowing this popsicle stand, and need I point out that if anything happens to us, our hostage here is likely to take something of an injury?"

Samantha moved ahead through the curtain, glancing from side to side as she went. She was completely unsurprised to see the civilian-dressed girl who'd led them here just outside, hiding to the side of the curtain's opening and quite apparently waiting for O'Neill to come through with the hostage - the intent to counter-ambush was quite apparent. Sam just raised an eyebrow, the girl calmly slipping backwards to give them the requisite distance, completely unashamed of the attempt.

O'Neill was next, his hostage leading the way, and out and into the infirmary, calmly turning around to get a good view - they were completely surrounded by those armoured soldiers, arms aimed at them indicating that those forearm things were weapons. But they were holding off for now, so the hostage ploy was working.

The rest of the infirmary looked mostly like the area sectioned off for Daniel, and there was a scattering of personnel other than the red-armoured soldiers - human-looking, both medical and some injured, mix of genders and ethnicities. Every single one had a hand on a sidearm, but nobody was firing.

... The fact that even the doctors were armed was giving Samantha a bit of a chill about that unarmed 'Grace' girl.

And now, out came Teal'c, carrying Daniel, with Janet following and trying to minimize the extra damage done to Daniel's wound by moving him.

"So hey, what's your name?" The green-haired woman asked, just hanging loosely and letting O'Neill move her around as he willed. "When I'm old and grey and telling stories about being held hostage by the dashing Colonel O'Neill, I need a bit more than that to fill it out, yeah?" The lollipop flicked out to the corner of her mouth.

O'Neill smirked, slowly moving their group towards the door. "Name's Jonathan, but you can call me Jack. I find it's important to maintain a good relationship with my hostages."

"Ah, well, in that case, name's Claire."

"Claire...?" He gestured slightly with the pistol pressed against her temple, as if asking her to go on.

She clucked her tongue. "Nah, I think I'll save the rest of it for later. Never know when I might need to fend off redshirt status."

"Your shirt is black," Teal'c noted.

Both hostage and hostage-taker just _looked_ at Teal'c, with a near-identical disappointed shake of their heads.

"You've gotta show that boy some movies, stat."

"Plan to, just as soon as we get home." O'Neill came up towards the door, and stared for a moment at the troops blocking the way. "Like the Red Sea, part."

Seeing twelve faceless-armoured figures simultaneously cock their heads in apparent confusion was either disturbing, or hilarious, and Samantha wasn't quite sure which.

Claire paused. "... Okay, yeah, that creeped me out too, Jack." She tilted her head slightly. "Disperse. Clear the path." The soldiers separated in unison.

Samantha went first, followed by O'Neill and 'Claire', and then Teal'c, Daniel, and Janet. Out into the hallway, which was more or less the same as usual, grey/beige walls and seams showing the ends and beginnings of various access panels.

"So, which way, Claire?"

"Out?"

"I'm open to a tour, if you prefer."

"Nah, maybe later, I prefer to get flowers first. Just continue straight forward. Onto the next slideway."

"This isn't going to be a trap, is it?"

"Are you gonna shoot me in the head if it is? I like my head. It's full of cool stuff."

O'Neill nodded. "Okay, you've got a point there."

Samantha stared at them incredulously. Okay, she knew the Colonel could keep his sense of humour going under some pretty impressive circumstances, but this was honestly starting to creep her out. Was neither of them really conscious of the fact that he was holding a gun to that woman's head?

She moved ahead, as the hallway widened, and stepped onto the first moving walkway, taking hold of the side 'rail' - it was the same kind of array as those long escalator-style walkways that they put in airports to speed up travel, except wider, and faster. O'Neill and his hostage, and then Teal'c carrying Daniel, and Janet, stepped on shortly behind her.

Wordlessly, Warrant Officer Marita Grace, and the twelve armoured soldiers followed them.

"Next up?"

Claire looked up, humming to herself. "End of this slideway, there'll be an elevator on your right." Her voice was a little raised, and looking back, Samantha could see Grace whispering into a PDA. Probably relaying their intended path... "In the elevator, hit the 'H' button, then once you're out, take the first slideway on the right. Then through the door to the left."

Sam pointed to where the eighteen-year-old girl was talking, and O'Neill turned his head and hostage a little to get a look, nodding.

"I hope you're telling people to clear out of our way."

Grace nodded shortly. "No one need be injured today, Colonel. There are fifty-thousand people aboard, and they are all armed. I would rather no hothead got you all and the Lieutenant killed."

O'Neill mouthed that number again, and whistled. "Big ship."

Claire chuckled. "The Shangri-La is based off the Space Noah class. It's meant to be an Ark. An escape for humanity from an Earth facing destruction. We're way below carrying capacity... though even at full, ain't no way even a percent of Earth is getting away. That's the rub all these humanity preservation projects have never _quite_ been able to fix."

O'Neill nodded. "Alpha Site is the same basic idea. It's just a last-ditch in case we fail, and since there are billions of people who won't fit, well, that's why we save the world instead of running away from it." Samantha frowned for a moment... but then realized he hadn't actually provided details, just enough to keep the conversation going, and sound agreeable to the sentiments she'd expressed.

"Exactly! But I swear, you try tell the pols that, and they look at you like you're retarded. 'course, that's mostly because the people who _are_ gonna get away on a 'humanity preservation project' are 'the elite', and somehow the politicians _always_ find their way onto the list."

O'Neill shrugged. "Well, they are writing it. That's probably their trick."

"Curse those clever bastards."

Their slideway was coming to an end, and Samantha stepped off, moving to the right - sure enough, an elevator. "So... who did you vote for, last election cycle?" The idea of holding a conversation with your own hostage sort of disturbed her. But this woman was a whole lot more talkative than Grace had been, and she was telling them so much that they hadn't yet known about the people who held them. For one thing, what sounded like a confirmation of them being from Earth...

Claire shook her head as they filed into the elevator, Sam hitting the 'H' button as soon as they were all there - it was near the top, the rest was all numbers without context. There wasn't enough room for Grace and the goon squad, and they moved across the hall, towards another elevator.

"You're kidding, right? Martial law for the last four years. I voted for Midcrid back then, for however good that turned out..."

"Midcrid?" Samantha prompted.

Claire smirked. "Brian Midcrid, and I'll leave the rest of that a teaser for ya."

O'Neill laughed. "Onto us, huh? I will say that your last ditch is much nicer than ours. Can I have one?"

"Ask reeeeaaaal nice, after a good dinner, without a gun to my head."

O'Neill tsked, looking at the pistol with a shake of his head. Heavy-looking weapon, though O'Neill seemed to use it easily. "Is this always going to get between us?"

"Nah, only as long as it's between us."

Daniel cleared his throat. "... Um, thank you for being a good sport about all this..."

Claire chuckled. "No worries! You're smart enough to realize if I take a scratch, you're all gonna die." She leaned back into Colonel O'Neill's grip, nursing her lollipop. "Safest person in a hostage situation? The hostage. If the taker's got brains. I'm your leverage, if I get hurt, you've got nothing but prayers keeping you from getting shot."

Daniel winced. "... Okay, I hadn't quite thought of it that way."

"Are you not concerned that we will harm you once we have obtained freedom?" Teal'c queried.

"If you _get_ in the clear, we held up our end of the whole hostage-taking _thing_. I don't know about the rest of you, but I do know anyone claiming the name O'Neill has the honor to return the favour."

"What do you mean by-?" Daniel's question was interrupted by the 'ding' of the elevator reaching its destination, and the doors sliding open...

To reveal Marita Grace, standing in front of her twelve soldiers. "The bridge slowed your elevator down," she explained, at their surprised looks. She backed away to let them out.

Samantha moved out slowly, looking both ways down the hall... empty, other than Grace and her troops. And the degree of control their opposition had over the environment had not gone unnoticed... they were letting them get away with this. Waiting for an opportunity to break Claire free. Which... Sam thought that might just say something about them.

Sam moved up to the slideway on the right, followed by the rest of the group, with Grace settling in behind them again. "So... where are we going?"

"Flight hangar. Quickest way off the Shangri-La."

"What does that name mean, to you?" Daniel asked. Sam cast him an odd look, before realizing... he knew what it meant, but not what it meant to them. Not why they'd picked the name.

"It's a fictional utopia," Grace stated, from behind them. "A reminder that no such place exists, until we carve it out ourselves. What we are to strive for... daniel."

Sam blinked at the oddly bashful way the girl whispered the name, before shaking her head. _Daniel, Daniel, Daniel..._ "Are all your ships named like that?" Mostly a shot in the dark, but where you can build one ship...

"All Shadow Mirror Trilobite-class vessels, yes. This particular battle group consists of Shangri-La, Annwn, Mahoroba, and the El Dorado." Implying there were more battle groups, and that there were three more such vessels in the area... but on the other hand, Grace had been cagey with information, and hadn't previously revealed anything she didn't want to. This may simply be misinformation.

Daniel opened his mouth, but was interrupted by O'Neill. "We don't need the mythological background right now. ... Though, what the hell's a Trilobite?"

Janet smiled. "Fossil group. Early marine arthropods. Almost cute little things, sort of like spade-headed insect-fish." Description obviously simplified for the less biologically inclined... that being everyone.

Samantha blinked. That... sounded almost like the shape of the ship they'd seen fighting Apophis. Though in retrospect, not surprising that they named it after its basic design. And... if they were naming things off Earth's fossil record... that was another indicator leaning to Earth-native.

"Huh. So hey, Claire, what do you _do_ here, anyway?"

Claire shrugged as best she could with her arms still held behind her back by O'Neill. "I believe our commanding officer calls me a 'supergeek'."

"Oh, hey, like Carter!"

"Well, I obviously spent more time in the classroom than in the gym. I swear, I _told_ the boss I was gonna lose my edge if I stayed out of too many firefights..."

"No you didn't, Lieutenant," Grace interrupted.

"... It was implied!"

They stepped off the slideway as it came to an end, and moved left, to the door.

Samantha shook her head. "Has everyone but me forgotten this is a hostage situation...?"

"No," Daniel noted.

"Of course not," Claire huffed. "But that's no reason to miss out on a fun conversation."

Teal'c glanced at Samantha. "I remember this feeling. It is similar to when I captured O'Neill."

"Rising tide of simultaneous frustration, anger, and sheer confusion?" Daniel asked, peering down at the man carrying him.

Teal'c simply tilted his head to the side, an acknowledgement of the statement without actually clarifying the answer.

Samantha shook her head slightly, moving up to the door. This probably _was_ pretty much what the many jaffa who'd captured them had felt like... Sam was honestly sympathetic at this point. She opened the door, and whistled, eyes widening.

That was a very, very large hangar bay. Nearly a cavern, Samantha would eyeball it as being somewhere in the range of a kilometer long, and almost completely empty. Well-lit, no dark corners. Not much noise, presumably since it had been cleared due to the hostage situation. But cleared fairly recently, Samantha could smell the familiar, tantalizing scents of oil, grease... Some distance to the left, there was a hulking blue machine, and Sam could see a Stargate lodged against a wall, with a number of guards standing in front of it, firearms at ready. One more large machine in the distance to the right.

In front of them, however, there was a row of six similar-looking machines. Six more on the side they were stepping out of. Humanoid, built a little on the stout end. Covered in rounded, curving plates of armour, painted in a mix of black and gunmetal grey, the body studded with vents and small nozzles. Flared-out shoulders with open vents, presumably for thrusters. The head was curved and sloped in shape, with a red 'visor' about where eyes would be on a human equivalent, and long, armoured antennae to the sides. A sort of 'backpack' on the rear, with two long, straight wings, and a pair of large thruster nozzles... could these things actually _fly_? The left arm was visibly different from the right - at the end, along the forearm, there were mounted three long cylinders, their purpose a complete mystery to Carter. A few of the dozen were modified in slight ways - for instance, one looked more 'buff', heavier-armoured, and with a strange set of vents arrayed around the center of its chest. But then, Carter could probably spend days digging into the guts of these things...

O'Neill seemed to almost squeal as he and his hostage stepped out into the hangar. "Oh wow... forget the ship, I want one of _these_."

Following on Teal'c, Daniel shook his head. "... You don't even know what they do, Jack."

"They're giant robots. They kick ass. I watched Transformers, Daniel, I _know this_."

Teal'c cocked his head. "What is the purpose of this design?"

Claire chuckled. "Multipurpose. On the ground, a Personal Trooper doesn't have the firepower or armour of a tank, but it's a whole lot more agile - you know, the whole 'sidestep' thing."

O'Neill nodded, staring up at the machine with what Sam would swear was stars in his eyes... "Gets 'em every time."

Samantha twitched. "'On the ground'? You can't possibly mean these things fly."

"Well, not all that _well_, the Gespensts you see here can only hit Mach Twoish, but yeah, they fly. Atmo's the weakest point, of course, drag really doesn't like the human shape."

Sam shook her head. "The amount of thrust you'd need to achieve that kind of speed... it's as anti-drag as a human form is going to get, but still..."

"Two meganewtons."

Sam choked, and took a moment to remember how to breathe. ... Well, if nothing else had suggested they had excellent technology... "That's..."

"A lot of thrust," O'Neill interrupted. "As in ten F-15s strapped together. Or double the Saturn V's third-stage engine."

Daniel nodded. "I se-how do _you_ know that?"

Sam chuckled. "Flight qualified, Daniel. We have to sit in a classroom for four years, and actually pass tests."

O'Neill nodded solemnly. "Osmosis. I slept on the textbook, the concepts seeped into my brain."

_Liar._ Sam shook her head, smirking.

Claire grinned, flicking her lollipop to the corner of her mouth again for easier speech. "Best part is in space. That whole drag problem fades away, and that's where you really start noticing that the thrusters are spread all over the body, and a good chunk of them you can move at a whim. You have no _idea_ how fast you can spin around when you control where the thrusters are."

"Want," O'Neill simply repeated.

"You heard 'im, Mary. Open up the roof."

Grace shook her head as her group came in behind. "I wondered what you had in mind, Lieutenant. Flight hangar, open." This last she said into her PDA.

The roof... began to move. Calmly, not very rapidly, sliding up, across the length of the hangar, to reveal... a glowing white light. And beyond it, water. Nothing but water. They were so deep they couldn't even see sunlight...

"Main terminal: Access," Claire stated, clearly and crisply, while the group was distracted staring upward. "Mode: Active. Call: Gespenst."

O'Neill caught up as soon as she'd begun speaking, and by the time she finished, his attention was fully back to her, sidearm pressed against her temple and pushing her head to the side... Trying to stop whatever she'd been trying to do, whatever had that maniacal grin plastered all over her face.

Then... his attention went off her again. As did Sam's, Teal'c's, Daniel's, and Janet's. Because one of those metal giants was _moving_, stepping out of the line, pulling a rifle from its leg and turning to face them...

Claire stated two more short sentences. "Aim at operator. Should damage be done to Lieutenant Claire O'Neill, fire." The giant obeyed, bringing the rifle barrel up to point straight down at their group.

Colonel O'Neill paused. "Okay, I'm gonna give it to ya - well played. So, who's the hostage now?"

Samantha simply stared up at that... very, very large gun. She was pretty sure the bore wasn't actually wider than she was tall, but it felt like it... they were _all_ going to splatter if that went off.

Daniel blinked. "... Didn't you say this wasn't a trap?"

"Technically, it wasn't. This _is_ also the only way out. And it's not like we needed a trap, Mary and the W-Series could've just opened fire any time and killed us all. It's a demonstration. Hell, if you want to keep me hostage I can't really stop you from here - this is just to really hammer in what we've got to bring to bear."

O'Neill let her go, though he kept the gun aimed at her as he backed away. "No hard feelings, yeah?"

"Hm?" She turned around to face him, pulling the lollipop out of her mouth and stretching out her arms out. "No, of course not. I don't really mind. Duty of a captured soldier to escape and all, I was just careless. It's just..." She pointed up with the lollipop between her fingers, at the sheer roof of apparently solid water, held away only by a brilliant white energy field. "We're two kilometers under the surface of the sea, and you are really, really outgunned, outnumbered to a degree I'd call 'absolute', in an environment under our total control. Thought I should point that out."

"... Awkward," O'Neill noted.

"Kinda, yeah." She rubbed her wrists. "Can I have my gun back before we all have to get shot in your attempted takeover of the ship?"

As if to accentuate her words... in fact, it probably was precisely to accentuate her words... more armoured soldiers poured into the hangar from a number of doors, and every single one of them raised their arms, aiming directly at SG-1. There went the 'make a break for the Stargate' plan that Sam had just had percolating... and it probably wouldn't work that well anyway, Sam was just now remembering that the Alpha Site's gate had defaulted to this as a destination.

Nowhere to go, even if the hostage ploy kept working.

O'Neill shook his head, sighing. "Can't blame a guy for tryin'... Somehow doubt we'd get far at this point. Know when to fold 'em..." He flicked a switch that Samantha presumed was the safety - and she just chalked it up to a bit of O'Neill's borderline-supernatural talent with weapons that he'd figured it out that easily - flipped the pistol in his hand, and handed it back to the young woman, butt-first. "Couldn't help but notice what you said your name was..."

Claire smirked, taking the pistol back and giving it a quick check before slipping it back into its holster. "Lieutenant Claire O'Neill. Make of that what you will." She stepped back, letting the guards surround them again. She brought a wrist, and what looked mostly like a watch, to her lips. "Return to cradle. Mode: Inactive." Then flicked the lollipop back into her mouth.

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Andrei Volkov slowly pushed the door open. It wasn't his home, of course, he was still negotiating in the United States, but given his current position as 'highest political official in Russia', it hadn't exactly been hard to get his daughter on leave and accompanying him for this trip... frankly, they needed the family time.

Though as he stepped quietly into the darkened room, lit only in demented shadows by the shifting light of a television, and noted his daughter's slim, athletic form curled up on the couch and resolutely facing away from him, he came to realize something.

No matter how much both she and he needed a hug right now, if he went close to her he was going to get hit. Knowing her, knee to the stomach, soldiers of _that_ command always prided themselves on their legs, but she wasn't sadistic enough to peg him where it hurt.

So he spoke up from a safe distance behind her instead. "I'm back, Arisha." Her name was Arina, of course, but as her father he was entitled to use the diminutive form of the name.

"I heard."

Andrei put down his briefcase, moving up towards the couch and leaning over the back of it. "Watching the news?" Coverage of some of the riots worldwide - one among many of the reasons he'd begun moving onto a war footing. People were pissed off, confused, they wanted something to kill. He needed to turn that against the goa'uld before it destroyed Earth. And he wanted the goa'uld dead regardless, for his own reasons.

"Not really."

Andrei frowned, where she couldn't see it. "... You were watching the conference, weren't you?"

The redheaded girl turned around in her seat to face him. "If you mean watching my father suck up to the Americans, after their secret projects got Mama and Maxim killed, then yes! Yes, I was."

Andrei smiled slightly. She froze - it wasn't the happy smile he usually showed to her. It was the KGB agent's smile he hadn't used since he went into politics. "You're right. The Americans _fucked up_. My wife and son are dead because of it. Don't forget for a second that it's my family too, Arisha."

She swallowed, rubbing her eyes and turning away - so he didn't see the tears. "... Sorry..."

He leaned over, laying a hand on her shoulder. Still smiling the cold smile. "You deserve an explanation, though. You know war better than I do, so let me give you a lesson in politics - in democracy."

She nodded slowly. "Why are you...?"

"Because yelling at the Americans won't bring Faina or Maxim back. It won't make you, or the Russian people, safe. And it won't even bring to justice the members of the American administration whose errors and secrecy brought about this attack. That is the first thing you need to remember - a nation is a body of people. _Individual_ people, less than a single percent of whom are involved in this kind of secret project."

"I _know_ that. If you proposed hitting everyone, I'd call it insane, but you're getting all polite and understanding to the _President_, and the people who made the powergrubbing decisions that ended up like this."

He moved around the couch, taking a seat next to where she was curled up. "What did you think of President Yeltsin?"

She blinked. "Uh..."

"What would you have thought of him if he'd ordered nuclear strikes to wipe out... let's say, North Korea?"

Arisha raised an eyebrow. "... That... he was a psychopath, that the people who followed his orders needed to be shot, and that it could probably count as a civic duty to overthrow him?"

"And what if the Americans then launched a spy campaign to kidnap him and bring him to the Hague? Let's assume for the moment that they could actually do it." The American intelligence apparatus had its talents, but it was far from reliable.

She blinked.

"It's not their business, is it? They have no right to be interfering in Russia's sovereignty. The problems in your nation are your own to deal with."

Arisha nodded slowly. "Of course... You're saying that you're an outsider. If you make a move, President Nichol and the people behind the Stargate Program aren't 'people who made bad decisions that got a hundred thousand murdered' any more. They're 'fellow Americans'."

Andrei smiled. "Exactly."

"But... most of the population grew up on Cold War propaganda. _You_ did, I'm just lucky to be young enough to have avoided it. Are they even going to care?"

Andrei gestured to the television. "They do. Those riots are going on in the United States as well. The legacy of propaganda makes it touchy, but they are human beings. No matter what both our governments have tried to do for decades, they still have their essential human compassion. I'll see if I can't arrange a few appropriate news reports to hammer the point home, but even without compassion for Russia, there are other reasons for them to be angry. After all... their government has been waging a war, in secret, against aliens, without their consent. Soldiers have been lost to their families for a war nobody has been cleared to even hear about. Even if they're not angry about the deaths of innocents, or the secrets, then they may well be angry about the _money_."

"So... they're angry. What does that help? Does the United States government even care about public opinion? They can just declare martial law."

"Remember, that government is comprised of 'people' as well. As is the military they would need to enforce controls. People who hold the same range of opinions as the ones they are supposed to control. Every government is fundamentally an absolute democracy - you simply can't hold power against the will of your people. They unite against you..." He snapped his fingers. "And you're done. And the United States is, at the least, democratic in ideals, and the republican structure gives people many opportunities to make their anger felt. If they try to resist that, they'll simply bring more public anger. William Nichol will never have a second term as President. He may not even finish this one. These people will never hold power again."

"So... you're saying sit back and enjoy the show? The people in the United States who got Mama and Maxim killed will be hung out to dry on their own, and if we do anything we'll just prevent that?"

Andrei nodded. "By being polite, understanding, and supportive, I make myself look like I am on the side of the American people. I really am, I don't have issue with them and now that we're facing aliens who bomb civilians and demand we worship them as gods, we need allies anyway. But in politics, appearance is more important than reality - I don't just have to be it, I have to look it."

Arisha hummed to herself, laying her head on her hands and watching the television. "... Just one more group to get a shot at, then."

"Thus why I'm cooperating with the United States."

"I want in."

Andrei blinked, turning to face her more directly. "In? To?"

"The Stargate. If you get us into the program." She shifted to face him as well, the television's light playing over her face. "I'm infantry. I'll never get a shot without that thing to take me across space, we don't have any other way."

Andrei frowned, looking away to the television. She was his daughter all right... too much his daughter. "Is that really...?"

"I don't want these 'goa'uld' to get away with this. And I'm not the type of person who can just move on. I'm military and you know it, father. I want them to die, and I want to pull the trigger."

He shook his head slowly. "... I can't say I don't understand... I feel the same... but I don't want _you_ to die."

"We had this discussion three years ago. I've seen combat since then."

"Yes, well, humour a man for not being comfortable with his daughter going off to fight... You're all I have left." Okay... that had been a low card to play, but... it was true. If she died... he was going to go back to a bad place - no future, just the present and the past. No hope, just memories. No self, just purpose. He was already halfway there.

Arisha took a deep breath. "... I'm sorry, Papa. I can't... I can't let this go..."

"If you don't go, someone else will. It won't be let go. I just don't want you to have to be it... for all I know, we may have to drown them in bodies. I don't want it to be yours."

She scooted across the couch, wrapping her arms around him. "It's... the same reason I signed up three years ago. I'm not very good at..." She shook her head. "This is a place where I fit. Where I'm good for other people. I know you want me to be safe, but I can't do nothing. I need to straighten this out myself, and that program needs to succeed or everyone here will be in danger. You, me, all of Russia... the Americans too..."

Andrei shook his head slightly, a small smile on his face as he returned the hug. "... Dammit. Sometimes I wish Faina didn't do such a good job raising you. A bit less responsibility and a bit more cowardice would make me a lot less nervous. But nowhere near as proud." He was pretty sure he'd said the same thing three years ago... And one year ago when her initial term had ended and she'd volunteered to stay in...

"... Sorry..."

"Two things. First, don't die. That's a direct order from your commander-in-chief, young lady."

She nodded against him. "I won't..."

"You'd better not. And second, I'm officially out of the selection process, and I'll make that known to the people picking out volunteers for the program. If you're the best person for the job, then you're in. If you're not, then you're just going to have to stay safe." Lord... he was tempted to block her.

She nodded once more. "I don't want any help like that... if I'm there because of connections instead of skills, then the whole group is worse off and the world's in more danger than it should be..."

Dammit.

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Vindel Mauser looked up from his desk as the three experts stepped into his office - the fact that Marita and Alex Walther both looked rather irritated boded ill for the report he'd requested. And O'Neill was still chipper as a squirrel on amphetamines, even after her little hostage situation a few days ago.

He stood up, moving around the desk to stand before them - no point sitting while they stood, and there weren't enough seats for everyone. "So. We've had somewhat over a week to analyze what we have. We'll need to retrieve our pilots in a matter of days. So let's hear the reports - System XN?"

"Good news, bad, and worse, sir," Walther responded, folding his arms. "I've straightened it up and done a basic status check - we're good for jumps of up to an AU, though we should do some shorter-ranged jumps - like up to Earth orbit to pick up the pilots - so I can run the numbers and make sure reality matches my math."

O'Neill grinned. "It tends to, oh child genius."

He waved irritably. "I'm five years younger than you. I was only a kid when we met."

Vindel cleared his throat.

Walther flushed, coughing into a hand. "Sorry sir. The bad news is, I can _not_ do anything further than I already have with System XN. I know the systems to some degree, and I can maybe try to figure it out further, but any further stabilization and system modification is most likely going to require Doctor Browning."

"Or Helios?" Vindel prodded.

"That'd be the 'worse' news, sir. I've checked the system logs. We are _not_ on target. There was a disruption in our path when we passed the region where this universe was, and it drew us in. The universe Helios's misjump took him to is a substantial distance away."

Vindel frowned. Great. They were stuck here for the duration. Unless one of the geeks had an idea... "Options?"

"With the personnel and equipment we have here on Shangri-La, sir? There aren't any. The expertise and materials for Project Hyperion are on Sierra de la Plata, any further direct system modification to XN is going to go slowly without Doctor Browning, and Helios isn't here. We're here until something changes."

Vindel nodded, tapping his chin. "Well, we won't need to leave in an immediate sense anyway. We still have to rebuild. Keep at System XN, and if the universe decides to go our way for once, the rest of the force should trickle in while we're building up again."

"Sir." Walther bowed slightly, stepping back. ... A _bow_? The kid was taking the 'knight' ethos a bit far. It was hard to tell sometimes whether it was the military or civilian aspects of Shadow Mirror that were stranger, but Walther seemed to continually make points for the civilian side.

Vindel turned to Marita, who stood quietly at attention. "At ease, Marita." She shifted to a military at ease position, naturally, which honestly looked a little strange in her civilian dress. "What do we have as far as local intelligence?"

Marita frowned slightly. "I've passed the tentative report regarding Stargate Command personnel and operating procedures already - going by our recordings, they appear to have guessed our origin to a fair degree of accuracy. Personnel is a mix of special forces in their O'Neill, and civilian scientific experts. The tone of their behaviour suggested they are mostly new to thinking about aliens - the divergence point in this universe may have been the discovery of the Stargate."

Vindel nodded to himself. "If that's the case, then these 'goa'uld' will exist back home as well. If, at least, it's only one divergence point. A divergence in alien space could eradicate them or allow them to spring up without actually affecting Earth until contact is made... What about the other prisoners? The... jaffa?"

Marita pursed her lips. "It turns out three of them were allies of the Stargate Command team - when we woke the jaf'fa, a fight broke out as soon as those three and the other five saw one another. We broke it up before the old man could kill all five of them, and moved them into the residential blocks we locked down for the SGC personnel."

"And how have interrogations been progressing?"

"Poorly, sir." She shook her head. "I apologize. The jaf'fa don't speak English, or any other major extant languages. It took us a while to narrow it down, but it appears they're speaking a variety of Coptic - Ancient Egyptian, that is. We have machine translation, but it's as iffy as ever."

O'Neill chuckled. "Be a great time to have finished reverse-engineering those Inspector translators, yeah?"

Vindel tsked. "Yes, well, the war had a great deal of non-immediate-application research put on hold. Doctor Browning had more important things to work on. Fortunately, however..." He moved back around to his desk, typing up a quick text and sending it to the communications section to be converted to a Flash transmission. "... the W-Numbers have similar machine translation abilities. They know more or less any language equally as well." His computer beeped, and he allowed himself a slight smile as he read the reply. "And W-16 and W-14 _do_ have Coptic loaded onto their memory."

O'Neill grinned. "Score one for Lemon's sense of completeness."

Vindel nodded, looking up. "We can have Browning finish the translators when she gets here. What about further interrogations, or the cameras we have in the prison blocks?"

Marita shook her head. "The SGC personnel seem to have taken to speaking in Coptic - maybe for the benefit of the jaf'fa, or they may have guessed we don't have effective translation of the language. Interrogations are... progressing. It will take some time before any major details come out. They don't trust us - we'll need to show our hand to really get them on-side, sir."

Vindel shook his head. "Not for now. We still don't know if we can trust _them_."

"Right, sir. The jaf'fa interrogations are going worse - most of them just rant at me in a language we don't really understand, and a few have tried to attack me." She shrugged. "The leader of the SGC allies - I _believe_ his name is 'Master Bra'tac' - appears more cooperative, but the language barrier is making it difficult to progress."

"Oh?"

"His tone indicates he mostly likes us, but is growing frustrated with our communication difficulties. As best I've been able to tell, he is opposed to the goa'uld, and is allied with the United States to that end. Our apparent opposition to them, and capacity to fight against them, appear to have interested him... or he could be saying that he appreciates our respect for the gods in not having idols scattered about the ship and asking for a chance to exercise."

Vindel raised an eyebrow.

"Machine translation is very, very iffy, sir."

"Clearly. What about the autopsies on the rest of the... jaf'fa?" He stumbled slightly over the pronunciation Marita had been using, but he assumed she had it right, as she'd been hearing the term directly from them. "Have we been able to determine what they are?"

"Human, apparently." Marita shook her head. "Genetically modified for various traits, but still basically the same species."

"Oh? Like Browning's W-00?" Pity that project had been of such a long time-scale - he expected quite the results from it twenty years down the line, if Neverland ever turned up. Browning had suggested accelerated growth to keep the project operating on a workable timescale, but... no. He hadn't descended low enough to throw four-year-olds into battle. He wasn't the Federation.

"According to the doctors, clumsier work than that. Most of the work appears to have gone into creating a marsupial pouch and internal nutrient flow, and triggering a complete immune system failure around puberty."

"This strikes me as..." He trailed off.

She nodded. "Immune functions are handed off to a snakelike alien creature that rests in the pouch, it's what sends various antibodies and chemicals into the rest of the soldier's body - it seems likely that the immune failure is to prevent the immune system from attacking the parasite."

Walther frowned, looking at Marita. "So... what's the benefit...?"

"According to the doctors, the parasites are a _better_ immune system than the natural - they have a knack for manipulating biorhythms and chemical flow, and the overall immune capacity is far superiour to normal. They also appear capable of secreting chemicals that allow an overall enhancement to physical strength, pain tolerance, general endurance..."

O'Neill facepalmed. "More supersoldiers? No offence, Mary."

Marita spoke on as if she didn't hear. "Certain functions are enhanced at the loss of others. The snakes are cold-blooded, unable to regulate their body temperature - extreme cold will likely make the snake lethargic, or even kill it. So jaf'fa are more vulnerable to extremes of temperature than stock humans. And a much larger appetite - they're no more efficient at using energy, they can simply use more."

Vindel nodded. "I suppose we won't have the opportunity to test that just yet..." Given that it would be torture of prisoners, and he just didn't _do_ that. "What else do we know about the snakes?"

"A few survived where their jaf'fa died. They're very aggressive and can cut things quite messily with those jaws of theirs - I had to pull the first one out where it was trying to crawl into Doctor Goodfrey's spine."

Vindel, O'Neill, and Walther all winced at the mental image. Fortunately, Marita had been good about keeping it at a base level of security - since there was no telling whether one of those 'jaf'fa' would suddenly get up as they'd misguessed whether they were alive or not, the doctors simply didn't autopsy alone or without a security detail. Though this certainly hadn't been expected.

"Doctor Goodfrey is alive, but irritated and in recovery right now. The autopsy teams have taken further precautions since - wearing light armour over vital areas, and securing the parasites more cautiously. And we've been putting the living ones into fluid solutions based on the internal pouches for now."

Vindel nodded. "All right... now we know the soldier. What about his equipment? O'Neill?"

O'Neill stuck out her tongue at Walther. "Maybe you got to investigate the gate, but I got the _guns_."

"O'Neill."

She grinned, turning to him. "Armour's weird. You saw they were wearing what looks like honest-to-god chainmail and plate armour?"

"Hard to miss."

She waved a hand. "The chain's garbage. I've seen medieval chain mail, and the medieval stuff is better-worked than this - it's damn near impossible to actually _cut_ medieval chain unless you're freaky-good, but the links on this break. It's not _easy_, but it's easier than medieval chain. Guns'll rip right through it without noticing." She held up a finger. "Ah, though I should say. It's got very low thermal conductivity. Individual regions of it heat up radically and kind of explode under extreme temperatures, but it doesn't transfer to the other links. So it's got... _fair_ properties against thermal weapons. Nothing spectacular, though, it just reduces the lethality a bit."

Vindel hummed. "And the plate? You didn't mention it."

She smirked. "Yeah, the plate's pretty resistive. Better than its medieval equivalent. I'd call it pretty much proof against common-use small arms of the late 20th century - especially the MP-5s the US team was using. Armour-piercing rounds - PDW and up - have fair odds of breaking through, _if _you score a direct hit - if you hit it at an angle, they'll likely glance off to the side." She waved a hand. "A hypervelocity penetrator off an ICG rips right through. We already had to upgrade them so we could penetrate the armour _we_ use. Our weapons'll barely notice."

Vindel nodded. "I'm sure infantry officers will be glad to hear that."

"Oh, and they've got some fair memory metals - the helmets some of them have shift, and compress, and have quite a lot of strength, probably more resistive than the standard armour, it's pretty much on par with the liquid metal alloy we started using around the Inspector War. Overall I'd peg their alloys and metallurgy about even with ours."

Vindel cocked his head. "They held up poorly under fire for that."

Walther coughed into a hand. "It's design problems. They don't do anything special with the armour to increase resistivity, they just layer more and more alloy. They may've never thought of beam coats or reactive or composite armour like we have."

Vindel hummed. Maybe. If that were the case, they'd have to be careful not to _give_ these aliens the idea.

O'Neill shrugged. "Guns are more... interesting. I like 'em, but you and the soldiers'll hate 'em."

"Oh?"

"The capital scale guns and the personnel ones are basically the same mechanism - yeah, they're carrying around personnel-scale energy weapons."

"... that suck," Walther noted. "Otherwise you'd be exulting more."

O'Neill nodded mournfully. "They basically work by ionizing compressed gas - atmospheric air - and accelerating it down the length of the staff - it's a plasma weapon, which is probably why our shields held up so well. They probably just accidentally sucked a chunk of the enemy weapons _into_ the shields. The large-scale ones are fine - they seem to be less efficient than our beam cannons, but have more momentum. In terms of raw damage they're around even, but they can slam around an enemy target better, for a drop in accuracy."

"Compared to our tertiary weaponry."

She nodded. "The personnel ones... dammit, rayguns should be better than this." She pulled out her D-Con, tapping up a display and passing it to Vindel.

It depicted the long staff, and a cross-section of its internals. "... Does it really need to be that large? That's incredibly unwieldy. Even a sniper would quail at using a weapon that long, and they don't actually have to _move_."

"Under the current capabilities, yeah, boss." She ran a finger along the length of the staff as depicted on her PDA. "The whole length of the staff is a plasma accelerator. And the plasma bolt needs to hit around the speed it does - any slower, and it'll have trouble penetrating atmosphere, start drifting weirdly... If you could make the acceleration faster, you could trim it down, but that'll increase recoil, and that's assuming the internals can handle the increased force and heat - the plasma is hot as fuck, so they're gonna hit their temperature limits a lot sooner than a solid high-velocity projectile."

Vindel nodded. "Difficult to aim?"

O'Neill shrugged. "Not my specialty, I'd have to bring in some of the grunts to try it. Or let a prisoner get his hands on it and show us how they're trained to handle the things."

Walther just _looked_ at her.

"Bah, spoil my fun... Yeah... overall performance isn't effective enough for us to really bother with. They diffuse fast in atmosphere... the plasma burst can deal lethal burns at point-blank range, but by about fifty meters, it'll just kind of scorch. It does really horrible-looking wounds to the outer skin, but more or less _nothing_ gets through to the internal organs and does real damage - it's just painful. And rate of fire is slow - the accelerator can only handle so much plasma at once, though the mechanism can split the plasma packets and do low-power autofire. Now all that said, they're still a threat - our armour isn't built to tangle with energy weapons. We could probably build a personnel-scale beam coat if they use these all the time, but if it isn't common it might not be worth the work time - we need to see more about how they use 'em first." She looked down, scuffing her boot against the floor. "Shiny as they are, I can't in good faith say do anything with them but strip for parts and design ideas. Overall performance is low, but they have some expertise in high-temperature operating materials, and the design's about as dead-simple as an AK."

"Buck up, O'Neill, I've got something you'll like. Come in on my lightweight Lion project some time," Walther offered. "I'll probably need your help with the weaponry either way."

O'Neill instantly brightened up, leaning over and hugging the petite engineer. "You know just how to make a girl feel good, Alex!"

He looked down, fiddling with his ring. "Please let me go."

"Awww." She let go, backing away. "I guess you're right. Wouldn't want to make Miss Cruz jealous, after all."

"Stop harping on that. I've already said it's not like that."

Marita just kind of looked away. Cruz wasn't exactly her favorite topic.

Vindel cleared his throat. "All right, discuss Walther's crush later." He smiled when the younger man glared up at him. "You've been examining the 'Stargate' we found, yes?"

Walther nodded sharply, bringing both hands up to adjust his glasses and get a moment to compose himself - though when he looked back up, he was still a little flushed. "To some extent. I haven't taken it apart, I'm mostly dialing the address they showed us and inserting probes into the mechanism, pulling off face plates... I'd like to take it apart at some point, but we don't have a spare, so I'll wait for your permission on that - I don't believe I'll render it nonfunctional, but I'd be irresponsible not to mention the possibility."

"What do you think of it?" Vindel leaned back against his desk.

"Fascinating piece of tech, it seems to create a Schwarzschild wormhole, and use a Casimir type effect to generate enough negative energy to hold it open... I'm gonna want Claire to give me some help with it, and Doctor Browning would be great to have along."

O'Neill looked at him strangely. "Hey, why do you call Lemon 'Doctor Browning', anyway? You've been working with her at TLI longer than any of us. And for that matter, what's with the name 'Lemon'?"

Walther shook his head. "She changed her name. Beyond that, it's her business. I'm not telling."

O'Neill folded her hand into a fist. "I'll noogie it out of that pretty head of yours."

"I won't cook you dinner tonight."

"Noooooo! I take it back!"

Vindel cleared his throat. Again. Lord, if O'Neill had been under any commander but him she'd have been demoted all the way back to recruit...

Walther nodded. "Bottom line, sir, the Stargate has a treasure trove of scientific potential for us, and unlike most of our pyramid ship salvage, we know what it does. We could profit heavily from disassembling it, but..."

Vindel hummed, nodding. "We have zero starlift capability at this time. The Stargate gives us the capability to reach out into the rest of the galaxy to perform missions and acquire resources."

"Yes sir."

Vindel moved around, typing up another Flash. "Marita, get what you can from the SGC personnel and their allies - we'll be releasing them soon. Interrogations are unlikely to get gate operating details in any reasonable timeframe, so we'll use another method, and at that point we don't really have anything to do with them, so we'll just give them back."

Marita nodded, seeming a bit... happier? Vindel had no idea what it was that had buoyed her spirits, but he wouldn't complain about it.

"Walther, how many potential addresses are there in the gate system?"

The delicate-built young man shook his head. "No way of knowing without more analysis time and pushing random buttons. _Assuming_ all addresses are seven symbols like Doctor Fraiser dialed, with the thirty-nine symbols to choose from, we're talking upwards of one hundred billion. Well upwards. It could be as low as two billion if it's a six-symbol address, no repeated symbols, with the seventh symbol used as an 'enter' key to tell the system it's done, but that's the bottom limit. And it could go far higher if more symbols than just seven can be involved. Random dialing's completely infeasible."

Vindel nodded, still typing up the Flash. "So we'll need addresses. O'Neill, put together a care package. Two of the pyramid ship's main cannons, with full technical readouts. And add in a communicator as well, I'm tiring of remote contact."

O'Neill blinked, cocking her head. "What for?"

"We'll deliver them to our local contact, in exchange for SGC addresses and mission logs. Drop them off while we're giving back the SGC's personnel. And pick up one of the W-Numbers while we're at it. We need a translator if we plan to be travelling the galaxy."

"Boss, schematics are worthless. You can't mimic something like this without tooling, construction techniques... the tolerances in the build are pretty loose, but are they gonna have the materials and construction techniques to build anything like it, even with samples?"

Vindel shrugged. "His political masters don't understand the basics. They want schematics and samples, so he'll give them schematics and samples. They'll shower praise all over him, and then go yelling at the engineers when they can't make it work because they don't have the tools. It's likely they'll figure it out, but it'll take a few months to years. Maybe in the future we'll give him something immediately usable, rather than just satisfying the 'tech' urges of his leash-holders. For now, we're still developing a working relationship."

"Does he have a code designation yet?" Marita queried.

Vindel shook his head. "Haven't had opportunity to think of one."

"December!" O'Neill interjected. At everyone's strange looks, she explained. "May-December romance? Come on, it's not that obscure."

Vindel nodded. "It's horrible. We'll use it." Hm. He typed up an addition to the Flash orders - get a copy of the addresses and mission logs themselves. To compare, make sure the newly-dubbed 'December' wasn't holding back on them.

"... Speaking of tooling and construction..." Walther began. "The chances of locating existing factories are... pretty much negligible. We can get _some_ things, but the local manufacturing base is twentieth century. They don't know how to build twenty-second century gear, they don't have the tools for it, or the materials expertise... We can bootstrap them, but it's going to take time."

Vindel nodded, shifting to another program in his computer after sending off the Flash. "We're going to go a few better. Though start on the bootstrapping - put together a list of relatively innocuous, non-weapons-applicable technologies that can get them used to building the materials base and supplies we're used to. Emphasis on medicine and infrastructure - the shiny stuff is more impressive to the public, but it's sickness and poor infrastructure that make life garbage in the undeveloped areas of the world, so we can at least improve the general status quo of life. We'll pull together names and start patenting things. We may as well make local currency off it."

Walther seemed surprised for a moment by the 'better', before his eyes widened in realization. Trust a colony boy to get it. He shook his head, continuing to address Vindel's second point. "The big infrastructure thing I can think of is the fusion reactors... with cheap and clean power, there's going to be a huge increase in standard of living, but it is potentially weapons-related, even if I dial back the thrust capability built into the design and go back to the original McKay model."

"Hm... go ahead with it. We'll have to absorb the risk, but we were thinking of leaking further technology anyway. We'll sit the border for now, but no further than original-model General Fusion reactors, understood, Walther?"

The young man bowed slightly.

O'Neill coughed into a hand, before raising it. "Professor Mauser!"

Vindel rolled his eyes. "Yes, O'Neill?"

"A 'few better'?"

Vindel smirked, and tapped a button on his computer, sending a file to their D-Cons. Walther tapped the rim of his glasses, and thin traceries appeared on the lenses - presumably reading the file with his heads-up display. "While you ubergeeks were doing your 'thing', I was drafting up Project Outer Heaven. I want you to run it over for design evaluation and see if you have any additions or opinions - in basis, we'll be travelling out to the asteroid belt and constructing habitats and equipment factories out there. Asteroid mining is extremely lucrative, and ridiculously easy, and with spin-controlled gravity we can make for substantial productivity. It will give us a place to offload noncombatants, a base of operations, and construction facilities working eventually to rebuild Shadow Mirror. We may even be able to recruit at some point - in the long term, building our own high-output facilities is likely the best move we can make. We'll have to do it all ourselves, but I think I prefer it this way. We don't have to make deals with the devil, because the devil can't give us what we need anyway. It's nice when morality and expedience coincide."

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Momo Mizrahi gently stepped through the Stargate Command facility, behind the inspecting Senator Kinsey and his party and gaggle of experts.

Of course, she wasn't part of that group of experts, or allowed in here at all - that was why she was wearing the infiltration-grade armour. It was very work-intensive to fit seamless video functionality across the outer surface of the armour, and even then it was basically worthless in combat, one had to move very slowly to keep it working and a single scratch would ruin it, but since it made someone pretty much invisible to sight if used well... It'd been worth giving her and the rest of the forward infiltration team one suit each.

Momo slipped up against the wall, coming to a halt as Kinsey and his experts met up with the base commander - the somewhat rotund, completely bald General George Hammond. He was angry at the time, a deep, seething anger that he tried to hide, but Momo liked the look of him. He looked... nice.

"Senator Kinsey. Welcome to Stargate Command."

Kinsey just shook his head. "I seem to be coming down here pretty often, General. Do you have any idea why?"

"I wouldn't presume to say, Senator Kinsey."

"And the fact that this command has sucked up seven billion taxpayer dollars and failed as soon as an attack came doesn't give you any ideas?"

The general shook his head. "Every person at this command obeyed the orders they were given from the Pentagon. We made recommendations, they were refused, and we carried out the orders given as best we could. The plan was bad, but this command had no say in it." Momo noted the glare he cast towards the colonel in Kinsey's entourage - the one with the bandaged nose, Samuels.

Colonel Harry Maybourne covered a snicker with his hand. "I noticed the logged protest. Forward-thinking of you, General." Kinsey cast him a look.

Momo shook her head. She liked Maybourne. She really didn't know why he worked for a man like Kinsey... even if General Hammond didn't seem to like him. _... Maybe it's because he doesn't like himself..._

Still, she was here for a job, not people-watching. She ghosted past them, stepping quietly past General Hammond as they continued the verbal sparring.

General Hammond's head tilted up slightly, and his eyes began tracking. Momo froze. This was why it was hard sneaking past humans - they still had dozens of primitive senses and techniques that they'd only _mostly_ forgotten... for all she knew, he'd _smelled_ her. He wasn't fully conscious of her presence yet, simply... looking.

She was saved when Maybourne spoke up, distracting the general long enough for her to slip past, out of his immediate detection zone. "Any further news regarding SG-1?"

General Hammond shook his head slowly. "Nothing since. Given the circumstances..." The pain in his voice confirmed Momo's initial, spontaneous decision to like him.

Kinsey barked a short laugh. "Ah yes. Your 'they used the Stargate to board and infiltrate the enemy ships' - against regulations, I might add - theory. I suppose when the ship in question explodes, the theory sounds more depressing."

Samuels said nothing, casting an apologetic look to the general.

General Hammond didn't seem to pay attention to it. "They believed they'd found a way to stop an impending attack - and they proved to be correct about the impending attack. They used a MALP, which indicates wherever they gated to was safe. Beyond that, since the gate point disappeared, we're left guessing, and the best guess doesn't look good."

Maybourne shook his head. "O'Neill's the next-best thing to immortal. You're probably right, and they're probably alive. Soldiers that good don't just die. There's fanfare." Kinsey quelled him with another look, but General Hammond, himself, looked at Maybourne consideringly.

Smiling under her armour, Momo continued down the hallway, away from the inspection party. Now, her sensors indicated that the base was mostly on a local area network - two if you counted the facilities in the other section of the mountain, but just one in Stargate Command. In all probability, the gate control computer was _not_ on the network. It would be more secure that way. So addresses, she'd likely need to pick up directly from the appropriate computer.

Mission and operation logs, however, should be in the main base network, to allow people to work on them on their own computers. Those would be easier to get, so she'd do that first. She drifted out to hug the hallway to decrease the chance of someone walking into her, and set out for an empty area.

Such wasn't exactly easy to find in a facility this small, and she continued moving past various working Air Force personnel, wincing as a 'Sergeant Siler' instinctively ducked away from her 'presence' and a crack emanated from his arm when he hit the wall. He rushed off, cradling his arm - presumably to the infirmary. Momo continued on, feeling a little guilty and helpless to do anything about it.

And... jackpot. Seemed to be the office of one 'Captain Carter', and Momo's infrared sensors indicated it was empty of any warm bodies. Camera pointed at the door, though at least the hallway was clear. It'd detect as soon as she opened the door.

So... she moved under the camera, and triggered an adhesive to secrete from the gloves and boots, allowing her to crawl up the wall close enough to touch it. To be honest, she could use this as an access point to the network too, but it was too exposed. Now, a normal infiltrator might be a bit limited in what they could do with the camera. Momo, however, was a Number.

All she needed to do was pull off a glove, exposing her slim hand to view. Spread her fingers. And let her contact filaments extend from the space between her fingers. With them out, she brought her hand up to the camera's bundle of cables, and carefully pressed one of her filaments in, nicking the appropriate cable and penetrating through the coating to the wires within.

Her eyes flashed. She was in the network, and seeing strangely double now - through her own eyes, and the camera. With another blink, she expanded her view to the next cameras down the line in each direction - it'd give her some warning if someone was coming through, who might see her currently-visible hand.

Now, pick a program... she hadn't come loaded with the programming to tackle equipment this _old_, but she'd had some time since she'd arrived to piece some basics together, so she didn't need to stand here actively writing the programs in the middle of an infiltration. Once she inserted it, the program would send the past few seconds of the camera's recording on loop to the security network, and the camera would shut down.

And... uploaded. Done. The camera's whir quieted beside her, and she pulled back her hand, readjusting to just seeing through her own one pair of eyes. Retracting the filaments to their housing between her fingers, and let the flesh slip back over the tiny holes in her hand. Glove back on. And she set her suit to neutralize the adhesive, dropping her back to the floor.

She hugged the wall as an airman carrying a rather heavy-looking stack of files passed through the hallway... and once he was a ways away, she was clear. She moved up to the door, and quickly, quietly pulled it open, slipping in and closing the door behind her. A quick scan of the room confirmed its emptiness, as well as the presence of a computer. That'd be easier than hacking in through the wires.

She moved up to the computer, looking around again - it was a pretty large office. Seemed to double as a workshop. Very tidily kept, no projects out and cluttering the work tables, or coffee mugs lying around... She pulled off her glove and extended her contact filaments again, ducking down. Now, these old computers usually had...

Yes! Floppy disk drive. She slipped her filaments in, establishing contact with the computer, and used her free hand to hit the power button. She wouldn't need the monitor, so she didn't turn it on - it'd increase visibility, for now she was shielded from cameras and anyone coming in by Captain Carter's desk.

The computer began to boot up, and she used the opportunity to read its operating parameters. Password request. She sent in one of Shadow Mirror's darker slogans - the ones devised towards the end of the war, when their loss was well in sight, had been long on spirit, short on optimism. This one had apparently been one of Chief Axel Almer's products of a darker mood.

Naturally, it was the wrong password, but the system had to bring the proper password to the fore to compare, and she snagged it when it showed - J4ke. After cycling to the second password attempt, she input the proper password... and was in.

She maneuvered through the system, and into the network. It seemed she was pretty lucky - Captain Carter had what appeared to be more or less total operating log access. Momo moved into the folder, and began drawing in data.

From here it was more or less a long wait. Her own system could easily download far faster than this, but a 1998 computer could only upload _to_ her so fast, and she was more or less at its limit.

The gate addresses would be trickier. A map of the facility would help, so she could find where the gate computer backed up to - backups were less likely to have people working at them than the main system, and she'd really rather not have to knock out the entire operating staff when she went onto that.

She settled in for the haul, reading the reports and data as they came into her system - her brothers and sisters were much, much less prone to boredom than she was. And besides, this was fascinating reading - even the inherent dryness of military reports couldn't really hide how these teams - particularly this SG-1 - were pretty nearly superheroes. She really hoped they'd want to join Shadow Mirror later, when Colonel Mauser decided it was safe to tell the truth about themselves.

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

George S Hammond knocked on the office door, frowning. He wasn't often called out of his own facility into the NORAD section of Cheyenne Mountain. Especially not so soon after a Senator came for an inspection - of course, his people had been up to snuff, even with Kinsey trying to pick at things.

"Come in," the occupant of the office ordered.

George stepped in, and saluted to the bespectacled man behind the desk - Michael Shanks, the second-in-command of North American Aerospace Defence, and currently in charge of Cheyenne Mountain, as his superiour was off at the Pentagon. Another general, but a higher grade of general than George himself was - three stars (well, maple leaves) to his two. And fitter... George would be embarrassed by his own build if he hadn't been five steps to retiring and a grandfather by now - see if the man looked as good and had all his hair at that point.

General Shanks returned the salute, gesturing to a seat in front of him. "General Hammond, I presume?"

George nodded, moving up to the seat and levering himself down. "May I ask what it was you needed, General?"

Shanks smiled mysteriously, pulling a bottle and a pair of small glasses from under his desk. "You like whiskey? I know you have the time."

George chuckled, nodding. "Certainly." He wasn't as jovial as he acted, of course, but the difference between a Colonel and a General was politics - he knew the game and the need to keep people comfortable.

Shanks poured the whiskey into the two glasses, picked up one, and passed the other to George. "Go on, try it. I don't really use this enough, so I'm never sure if it's good enough."

George chuckled, taking a sip and swilling it around his mouth to evaluate the taste. It was decent stuff - not the best, but it was clear Shanks wasn't much of a drinker.

"Oh, sorry. Let me ask again," Shanks suddenly requested. "General Hammond, of the Stargate Program, I presume?"

George's eyes widened, and he couldn't stop half the whiskey from being spat out of his mouth, over Shanks's hand - the general had brought his hand up to block the spit-take, totally expecting this. "... I'm not cleared to say, and even if I were, you're not cleared to know, General Shanks." How the

_hell_ had he found out about it? The _existence_ of the SGC was public now, after President Nichol had had to start the disclosure ball rolling, but its _location_ was still top secret.

Shanks smiled. "Don't bother, General. I've pretty much figured it out, and to be sure, it wouldn't hold up in a legal environment, but it's enough that I know who to talk to." He took a sip of the whiskey, a plain 'does not like alcohol' expression flitting across his face as he tasted and swallowed. "I'd have preferred to hold this meeting in your own office, where you're more comfortable, but apparently I'm not even allowed into your section of my own base."

George wiped his mouth and slowly took another sip, composing himself. "You're the man who walked up to security yesterday claiming to be Daniel Jackson, aren't you?" Then when refused, he'd walked away with his hands in his pockets and whistling.

Shanks grinned, leaning back in his padded chair. "Yeah, you can stop looking for the loon now. You see, I knew there was _some_ kind of top secret facility down there in the old missile training center. Hard to hide the various requisitions you've made and shipped in there. Had no idea what it was, but when your President went on the airwaves talking about the Stargate, I figured, hey, maybe that was it. He mentioned Jackson's name, so I tried it."

George raised an eyebrow. "You seriously expected to be let in just because you claimed to be Daniel Jackson, without identification?" Maybe there was a superficial resemblance, but he wouldn't pass inspection except at a distance - he was too old, and far too military.

"Of course not! I expected one of two things. Either the guard would blink and wonder why he should care who I am. Or he'd point out that I am, in fact, _not_ Daniel Jackson - which'd mean _he knew Daniel Jackson_, a man who your President had just said was involved in the Stargate Program."

George sighed heavily, taking a long swig of the whiskey - feeling a certain need for it right now. The security had been broken by something _that small_? At least the second-in-command of NORAD was more trustworthy than some random civilian, but _any_ resident of Colorado Springs could have tried it... Another hole exposed and to be fixed. "So. What is it you want, General Shanks?"

Shanks took a deep breath, and put down his whiskey glass. "You know I'm Canadian, of course?"

George nodded slowly. "Of course." The Deputy Commander of NORAD was _always_ Canadian. It was a unified command - and Shanks being a foreigner was part of what made the leak problematic, though at least it was the Canadians.

"I'm speaking to you today in that respect, as a representative of the Canadian government - this message is also being passed on to your president, but as the man on the ground, we thought you deserved to be kept in the loop and spoken to directly."

George nodded sharply. "Understand that I don't have the power to act on anything you ask. I'm bound by orders first."

"Of course." Shanks folded his hands together over his chest. "I'll cut right to the chase. We've got two outstanding issues with your program. First off, the Canadian Forces high command considers the placement of your facility unacceptable."

George raised an eyebrow, waving slightly for Shanks to continue and taking a long sip of the whiskey. Not the best, of course, but this was a 'whiskey' conversation.

"You've got a gate open to half the galaxy down there. And believe me, I'm fascinated by the idea, but it _is_ a threat. Not only that, but it's a threat put right at our jugular. If anything gets out of your facility's containment, it doesn't even have to cross the street before it can rip into the NORAD facilities. It can basically shut down or seize control of the entire continent's aerospace defence and early warning network. This's bad enough if the worst we have to worry about is the Russians poking us to see how quick our pilots are. It's catastrophic if it happens right before an alien invasion, and I'm pretty sure I'm in the twilight zone since I can say those words without sounding crazy..."

George winced. "This facility was deemed the most secure we had available."

"Well, you're probably right. Though now that this mess is public, you can probably build a sufficiently secure site at a better location. And as I said, this location is unacceptable. It's bad enough if it cripples your own aerospace defence, but we cover the entire continent, which means Canadian national security is at just as much of a risk."

"I apologize, General Shanks, but there's nothing I can do about it."

Shanks nodded comfortably. "Oh, I understand. Our government is offering yours three choices to fix this, because the status-quo of every egg in the one basket simply isn't tolerable. Number one, move the Stargate. Number two, switch NORAD primary command to CFB North Bay up in Canada - it would still heavily impair United States continental air defence if the Cheyenne Mountain facility went down, but it would leave Canada's untouched, so it at least impairs only your own national security. And number three - and bear in mind we don't like this option either - Canada pulls out of NORAD. I really don't like the idea, but our chances are better on our own than with primary command exposed as it is now."

George frowned, looking down into his glass and swirling the alcohol around in it. "It's also possible the Stargate will be shut down entirely."

Shanks shook his head. "Not a chance. The Russians want it used - they want a shot at the aliens. You shut it down, they'll buy it, steal it, or damn well try to invade to get it, and half the planet'll help them. The gate's staying open whether you're running it or not, and your gov is never gonna let the Russians run through the galaxy without them." He leaned forward again. "To be honest, the Russians are right. Burying our heads isn't going to work, especially not now that the aliens have hit us and lost people trying it. And I know you've told your people the same thing, General Hammond, your record doesn't indicate an idiot or a coward."

"Flattery will get you nowhere, General, I don't have the power to determine whether the gate is used - only how."

"Fair enough. I suppose it's a question of whether your gov can see the writing on the wall or the Russians end up gunning for the gate. And speaking of the Russians, what're your thoughts on their cooperative gate venture idea?"

George paused, looking up and into Shanks's eyes. "... Second outstanding issue is that you want in, isn't it?"

"Weeeell, I was hoping to solicit your opinion before diving right in on that, but yes." He shrugged. "We're too small in terms of population to match what you can put in, but we can contribute funding and personnel to the program, and quite a lot of territory as potential locations for the Stargate. You've got your own options, of course, but we have much, much, much more 'completely empty' space than you."

George whistled. "It seems everyone wants in."

"Surprised?"

"Not really." George took a deep breath. "As far as my opinion... off the record?"

"I won't include it in my report."

George nodded. "... I see the point about the United States taking it on itself to represent the entire planet. I don't necessarily disagree, but I'm nationalistic enough to say I prefer the United States have control over who gets what through the gate than let nations led by insane dictators like North Korea have free access to potential alien superweapons. And I don't want a dozen conflicting chains of command and Russian soldiers who don't necessarily speak English taking commands from their own government before me. No clear chain of command will destroy the efficacy of the facility."

"Fair enough. What if all soldiers follow your orders first? No conflicting chain of command, simply foreign soldiers under your command?"

George scratched his cheek. "Assuming it'd ever happen... I honestly couldn't say. Foreign soldiers work all right in certain cases - NATO, for example. And special forces units sometimes mix nationalities at an even smaller command scale than the SGC. Your boys would work fine. Warsaw Pact forces, on the other hand... I can barely even imagine it. We spent decades training to kill each other. A fair proportion of my officers make the sign of the cross when they say 'Russian'. The Cold War's over, and I'm too old to care about things like that, but my people may not appreciate the idea, and a command where half of them are trained to kill each other is a recipe for disaster."

Shanks nodded, humming to himself. "Well-" The phone on his desk rang, and he blinked, reaching out for it. "Sorry, General..." He pressed the phone to his ear. "Shanks here." His eyes widened, and he flicked a switch, changing it to speaker. "I've got General Hammond here. Repeat that."

A young technician took another deep breath on the other end of the line. "The Russians have called in. They're reporting our Guests are moving - the unknown spacecraft is floating over the Black Sea now."

George's own eyes widened. "Can we make contact with them?"

"The Russians are trying, but they're nonresponsive. We're thin... holy _shit_!"

"Bit more detail, Lieutenant," Shanks prodded.

"Uh... we've got a huge glowing light to the south of the mountain, sir. And... uh, a really messed up electromagnetic pulse pattern. It's not damaging anything here, we're hardened against that, but our local area radar is scrambling."

Shanks cast a look at George. "How huge are we talking? And is it clear of civilian areas?"

George frowned, thinking to himself while the technician responded. "Really huge - circular, at least two or three kilometers radiu... ah, wait, that's diameter. Nobody's living out in that area."

George shook his head. "... I haven't heard of this effect before." They'd only been out there a year... best they could pray for was that it wasn't the goa'uld or an attack.

There was nothing to announce the change in status - no vibration that could be felt down here, no singing chorus, but the technician took a deep breath and then reported: "... EM has died down. The light's gone... it's one of those huge ships. The Guests." What they'd been calling the people who'd intervened against Apophis. Everything needed a name.

The whiskey probably didn't actually turn to ice in George's gut, but it felt like it. An unknown alien force, on Earth, and they not only possessed enough firepower to pound the planet flat, but they could _teleport_? "... General Shanks, I'd recommend you train every sensor you've got on that thing."

"Consider that an order, Lieutenant. And call Buckley Air Force Base - get their fighters out here with whatever they can bring to bear, but they are _not_ to open fire before the Guests do."

"General Shanks, in all probability there's nothing a handful of fighters can do to stop whatever a ship that size feels like doing."

Shanks nodded. "In all probability. I'd still prefer to have something ready to give them a battle scar to remember us by if they get aggressive." He switched off the speaker for a moment. "Make a note, General Hammond - I'm going to recommend we start making things 'interesting'. Your boys have a whole load of Davey Crockett miniature nuclear warheads dating back to the sixties, we can make our alien enemies cringe a little if we start strapping those things into ASATs and fighter-scale missiles. We need something to scrape the paint off these huge buggers."

George chuckled. "I'll pass it on." Anyone who thought Canadians were pacifists - including Canadians themselves - had clearly never met Canadian soldiers.

General Shanks put it back to speaker. "Lieutenant Curry, call the Russians. Ask them if their ship's gone now, or if there are two of these things on the planet. And start hailing ours, all channels, every language you can scrape up." He stood. "Keep in touch with me through intercom as necessary, I'm heading up to the control center now. General Hammond, you're coming with me, you're the closest thing to an alien expert we have."

George nodded, standing up as well as General Shanks moved around his desk and up to the door. "I'll warn that I don't know these ones. We've encountered a limited number of populations technologically competitive with even the fifteenth century, let alone the gould. A total of... four."

"Give me the rundown on them," Shanks ordered, stepping out into the hardened concrete halls of NORAD's primary facility - much the same as in the SGC.

George followed him. Fortunately, in a circumstance like this, since disclosure had occurred, he _was_ freed to release all details of SGC operations and discoveries that he considered relevant - so he wouldn't be court-martialled for providing officers background knowledge in the interests of saving the planet. "It can't be the Tollan. Tollan FTL is too slow - their nearest ship to Earth was years away when we met them earlier this year." And this thing didn't give him a 'Tollan' feeling... it wasn't shiny enough. Too much functional, pragmatic construction.

"Others?"

"The population of Altair is five people, and four of them are closely associated with us - if this were from them, they'd be responsive." They were also robots, but he was _so_ not going to get into that right now. "And the Nox are extremely pacifistic and non-interventionist. It's an open question whether they have weapons at all, and they've never, as far as we know, left their planet to assist _anyone_ against the gould - from what I've understood of their philosophy, the Nox consider the gould rights to be equal to those of the people they enslave, and violence to prevent that to be immoral."

Shanks's expression twisted a little unpleasantly, and he nodded. "And the last?"

"About as mysterious as these ones, General. We haven't met them in person, only an automated defence system they left behind on a planet we visited. All we really know is that they inspired the Norse pantheon, that they're competitive with the gould, and that they _do_ act against them - they're fairly benevolent. They may be our Guests, but our prior encounter is scarce on details."

"You'll still know Thor or whoever better than I will, General Hammond."

"That's most likely true."

Shanks came to a halt, and stepped out of the hall, into the command center.

George followed him, looking around and shaking his head slightly. It was _much_ larger and nicer than his own. If aliens had been public knowledge, the battle against Apophis's ships would almost certainly have been directed from this large, spacious, carpeted room. The large screens across the walls normally depicted strategic data, maps and graphs, but for the moment they had been repurposed to show a few different angles of the mystery ship, as well as what data they'd been able to pick up from it. Water dripped off its hull like rain.

The first thing that hit his mind as he observed the immense green-painted bulk of the ship was... well, the size. This was a machine built by people who knew their business, and considered it to be war. There was no way the Nox were involved in the slightest. And it was no surprise that it had defeated Apophis's ships - it outmassed the two ships put together by at least four to one.

The second thing was the construction, the clean lines... It didn't look too damaged by the battle. Simple, effective design, the kind of thing that came from the mind of an engineer rather than an artist. Again, George couldn't imagine a thing like this not put together explicitly for the purpose of battle.

The third thing was the smaller vehicles flitting around it. He remembered having seen these sorts of things on the original enhanced battle video, though it was easier to discern details at this range. Twelve rounded, heavy-set, humanoid forms stationed around the huge ship. Seemingly hovering motionless in midair.

And two more, heading up from the ground towards the top side of the ship... had they had scouts in the region that they were picking up now? One slimmer, more angular. The other much larger than all the other such humanoid forms, spiked and plated and with what George almost thought was a _cape_ over its back...

"Top side's open, sir!" a young captain called out.

George blinked as a new camera view came up... yes. There was a thick strip down the back of the ship, open to the air, armour plating retracted... George thought it looked like a huge hangar. He could only just see tiny humanoid forms milling within, as the two machines settled down on the floor.

Shanks whistled, leaning over one of the operators. "Call up our interceptors. Have them move to a high-altitude position, and target that centerline strip. Do _not_ open fire until fired upon."

"Yes sir."

He nodded, spinning around and pointing at a fresh-faced lieutenant. "What've the Russkies said? And have our Guests responded to contact?"

"Uh... no sir." It was the same man who'd been contacting Shanks earlier. "The Russians have reported the original ship is no longer over the Black Sea... this may be the same one."

George frowned, stepping up next to General Shanks. "So they can teleport. I can't say I've ever seen or heard reports of large-scale teleportation - transporters exist, but the diameter has never been over seven meters. And we've only seen them with a transporter unit on either end of the travel." The awed look he was receiving from some of the operators felt... very strange. But then again... science fiction fans were probably more prevalent in the Air Force than anywhere else in the world, and here he was, living the dream.

Shanks nodded, glancing over the screen and frowning. "What the hell is with those sensor readings?"

"Uh, sorry sir. It's got an abnormally small radar cross-section... it's highly stealthed, we can at least pick it up at this range but we can't get much detail, optical and thermal are giving better results." One of the images of the ship became dimmer, with highlighted wireframes denoting points of interest. A very large number of apparent vertical launch missile hatches across the top, some odd structures that George thought might unfold into cannons... The construction made sense, unconcealed cannon stations would damage the ship's aerodynamic and stealth performance.

George, watching the screens, frowned, pointing to them. "Look. One of the units that just went onboard is taking off again." It was the larger one, and it seemed to be carrying a pair of very large objects in its hands as it lifted off the flight deck.

That, in itself, seemed to trigger a shift in the Guest forces - the twelve units, presumably an air defence team, began moving back towards the upper hatch. The large unit descended... very rapidly, actually. And then the displays fuzzed out for a moment.

The lieutenant blinked. "Sir, we just got a large burst of data... I think a virus just hit our comm systems! Everything's scrambling..."

Shanks frowned, turning to another operator. "That looks like the first shot. Send them a message - they have one minute to open contact before we'll take that as an act of war. And tell the interceptors to move into position."

George bit his lip, watching the twelve patrol units returning to the bay in the top of the ship, and the door smoothly sliding to a closed position. He moved up to whisper into Shanks's ear. "It may not be a virus - it could be a first contact package, or a communication..." He could've said it out loud, but he wasn't stupid enough to undermine a commander's authority in a situation like this, especially not when he wasn't absolutely sure.

Shanks nodded, whispering back. "Maybe. But didn't they speak Russian to the Black Sea Fleet? Using the existing comm protocols? That's on record. They don't need a first contact package, and they are capable of contacting us. They're refusing to."

George shook his head. "We don't know that."

"But we're going to have to make a decision before they decide to attack or attempt a takeover."

"Maybe they just speak Russian rather than English!"

Shanks paused, and slowly, calmly, brought his hand up to hit his forehead. He turned to the operator. "Repeat the message, and give them another minute. Then repeat it in Russian. Keep the interceptors in position." He turned back to George. "We'll try your theory. But we _know_ they speak Russian and are capable of contact. Silence at this point is a refusal to open up, not a failure."

George nodded. "I just don't want us to open fire on people who outgun us this heavily without trying the other options first... If I think of any more, I'll protest, but for now, this is the best we can do."

And then, the room's speakers gave a short burst of static, before giving way to a man's voice. "Good... good. You're willing to open fire. Even when you're outgunned. You gave us every chance to communicate, and if we refuse, there's no reason to allow us on your territory. I was wondering about this world, after that last ploy with the pyramid ships... Thank you for proving who you are."

George's eyes widened. "Is this... This is General Hammond, of the United States Air Force. Who am I speaking to?"

"I am Colonel Vindel Mauser, commander in chief of Shadow Mirror. That means nothing to you at this time - perhaps I will explain it in the future, but first... The world is undergoing a great shift. I want to know what world I will be dealing with in the future before truly opening our hearts."

General Shanks nodded. "Fine. But you're still violating North American aerospace with a heavily armed craft, and you just tried to hack us."

George could hear the hint of a smile in Colonel Mauser's voice. "Simply a systems test. It would be a shame for this planet to fall because of a simple incompetence in computer design. I must say that you met expectations. To be sure, I control your sensor and communication displays at this point, but the systems are well-segregated - life support, for instance, is on a completely different circuit, and I can't even hijack your systems to send false communications out. I'd recommend keeping it up. Dying because some fool thought airlocks absolutely _had_ to be connected to the communicators will certainly never get you into Valhalla."

"Gee. Thanks." The gratitude in General Shanks's voice was somewhat less than palpable.

"Don't worry, we'll be leaving momentarily. We were really just here to drop something off for you. You misplaced a few things." The communication cut out, and while the ship itself vanished in a flash of blue light, one of the display screens at the front of the room shifted to a list.

A list of names. Names that warmed George's heart. _Colonel Jonathan O'Neill. Captain Samantha Carter. Doctor Daniel Jackson. Teal'c. Doctor Janet Fraiser..._ The list went on, covering the other twenty-three missing members of the Alpha Team.

Every. Single. Soldier. Every man and woman under George's command who had gone missing in the past two weeks. They were all there. And three more jaf'fa names, including Bra'tac.

George would try to withhold his elation until the container the large robot had gently set down on the roadside was checked and he actually _saw_ them...

But it wasn't going to be easy.

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Author's Notes:

Thanks go out to the usual pre-readers (Sunshine Temple, Belgarion213, Ellf, and DCG), plus Kurushi-the-archaeologist for confirming some points for me about archaeology law regarding the Stargate. (Of course, even if it's legally Egypt's property, they can hardly expect to get it back from the US...)

Apologies for not coming out sooner, the muses were working right, but TVTropes. Freely available distractions make it very difficult to get cracking through a scene from Kinsey's perspective...

Those who are reading it on a forum may notice the changed scene breaks. To which I can only say: FFNet. Had to change 'em so they don't delete.

Regarding shields, that's just my own theory - seems to fit the constant talking about 'frequency' (a solid wall wouldn't _have_ a frequency), as well as the way we've seen shots fairly often not so much _penetrate_ the shields as simply pass through without ever interacting with them (see Tollan ion cannons, when they actually work, as well as what ends up happening to most heavily-fired-upon ships such as Anubis's ship and Prometheus in Lost City, with the shield still visibly up, but impacts occurring on the hull). Considering that in Upgrades O'Neill and Carter were _walking_ through the shields once they knew the flicker pattern...

And yes, I'm operating under the assumption, for the sake of my own sanity, that they're generally speaking an Egyptian-derived language on other planets, and the Canadian-accented English is just translation convention. Well, except in Alex's case.

As always, reviews, comments, corrections, and etcetera are appreciated whether for good or ill, and my email's always open (PaleWLF gmail com).


	4. Chapter 03: Ash to Ash

Disclaimer: No copyright is mine, thus no copyrighted character is. If you recognize them from something that's not written by 'Pale Wolf', I have no legal claim to them. If a list is requested, I'll dig it up.

The Shadow on the Other Side of the Mirror

By Pale Wolf

Chapter Three

Ash to Ash

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Alexander Walther was lucky not to be a very giggly person. It made it easier to hide his giddiness, as he made some final adjustments on the bevy of sensors being trained on the Stargate.

He was less into the whole 'new frontiers' and 'boldly going where no man has gone before' thing than Filio had been, but there was a whole lot of potential in this Extra Over Technology - the term for alien-derived technologies - toy to fix the problems in the places man had already been, and _that_ was well within his interests.

He frowned slightly, shaking off the momentary thoughts of Filio. The man had deserved better than he'd got. Maybe one day Alex would get the chance to finish the Terrestrial Dream for him. For now, this was pretty close.

Alex pushed off the floor and floated back to the makeshift observation room they'd put together in one of Shangri-La's cargo bays, brushing off his hands. "Okay, scanners over here are ready to go."

"_Finally_!" Claire chirped. "I thought we'd never get around to it!"

"Anticipation sweetens the deal." Colonel Mauser had insisted they take the time to go over the SGC data Mizrahi had brought back, and set up sensors to confirm the SGC's readings and theories, as well as anything their own researchers could come up with and think of to check on. It had been a few weeks already before they now got to open the gate - though they hadn't been working _solely_ on the gate in that time. Among other things, continuing to go through and attempt to identify the vast amount of mysterious alien hardware.

Claire reached out, catching Alex as he floated by and drawing him to the console next to her. "Sure, if it happens at all... 'least we're about to make launch."

Alex nodded, pulling himself into the seat and fastening his harness so he didn't go floating away. They were out at the asteroid belt now, and while he knew microgravity, he'd appreciate if the construction crews could get the habitat and spin-gravity completed before bone and muscle atrophy started setting in - he was frail enough as it was, since they'd taken Shangri-La's prefabricated spin-section to give them a head start on constructing the... rather ambitious plans for Outer Heaven, along with the sealed-building prefabs. "Balthazar, you ready?"

The pale-haired young woman nodded sharply from a console a ways down, gently pulling the crown, visor, and headphone assembly down onto herself, through her floating masses of hair. "Simple input system is running... drone is working according to parameters." Down in front of the gate, Alex could see a full-suited W-Series drone stretching and swinging its limbs, presumably Balthazar running it through its paces.

Momo Mizrahi, seated in the observation positions behind them, looked up nervously at the scarred Lieutenant Virgil sitting next to her - the nervousness was probably understandable, the man was still a little irritable after Hornst's rendition of 'twenty-four trillion bottles of beer on the wall' over the week they'd waited for pickup in orbit, and he didn't like bioroids to start with. She swallowed slightly. "Um... Coptic program loaded. Ready for translation."

Claire grinned, reaching up to flick a few switches. "Okay, diagnostics section two ready to go. All stations have reported in, we are ready to activate the gate."

Colonel Mauser nodded, leaning forward as much as his seat's harness allowed. "Then start it."

Claire grinned at the young woman next to her. "You're up, Maria."

Balthazar tapped a button on her headset, darkening the visor so as not to distract herself with outside sights, and focused on controlling the W-Series drone - itself essentially a robot made of semibiological materials. Virgil called them meat puppets sometimes, and the drones really didn't have any more sentience than that, they had basic skills but less independent thought than a pet Labrador. AI didn't get much more impressive than that, except in the case of the Numbers.

The drone straightened where it stood in front of the 'Dial Home Device', and brought its hand up to press the first sigil. The gate's inner ring spun into position, and the first triangular capacitor - screw it, he'd call them 'chevrons' like the SGC did - slid into place with a satisfying, echoing thunk.

Claire whistled at the readings beginning to spool in. "Well, Lemon's gonna be _pissed_ she's missing this... I think we just covered a decade's worth of R&D pushing that button."

"Continue?" Balthazar asked, holding the drone's hand over the next button on the DHD.

Colonel Mauser waited for a moment for Claire or Alex to raise a protest, then nodded. "Continue at the current pace, and remain ready to stop if told."

"Yes sir." The drone pressed the second button.

Then the third.

Alex pored over the data as fast as he could, trying to catch any potential problems before they exacerbated...

Fourth sigil in.

Fifth.

Sixth...

"Initiating point of origin."

"Proceed."

The drone's hand settled onto the large crystalline facing in the center of the DHD, and in an instant, the wormhole, looking for all the world like a pool of water, formed with a flash in the center of the ring, and the 'water' boiled out in the short unstable vortex the SGC's operating data had warned them about, disintegrating a series of rods placed in front of the gate.

Alex looked aside, reading the numbers displayed on the HUD in his glasses. "Unstable vortex sensors lost as predicted. Data recovered... no damage transfer beyond the apparent. It's a clean shear."

"And wormhole is stable," Claire ended with a grin. "Timer's running and the data's a floatin' in."

Balthazar cleared her visor, turning in her seat to look at the observation group. "Permission to deploy drone?"

Colonel Mauser brought his hands together in polite applause. "Granted. I suppose if this works, we'll need to build an 'iris' for defence..."

Lieutenant Virgil shrugged. "If it doesn't, you can have Walther and O'Neill rip it apart and poke at the insides. Either's fine."

Balthazar nodded, setting her visor back to exclusion mode and resettling in her seat. "Deploying drone." Under her command, the W-Series unit pushed off the DHD, calmly floating to the wormhole...

... and gone.

"Drone telemetry lost."

Alex started the timer. "Predicted resumption of telemetry in five seconds."

Moments later... "Telemetry's back up. We're through," Balthazar stated.

The audience all leaned forward to look at the display screens - even Alex (and of course Claire) spared some time from the readouts to look at the new world through the eyes of a W-Series drone.

It was very green. A long, grassy field, studded with the occasional rock. And as the drone's view panned up, pine trees and mountains were visible in the distance. This was basically what they were expecting - they'd picked out a planet the SGC had explored and listed as 'mostly harmle-'... Claire was infecting him. They'd picked a planet the SGC listed as uninhabited, with nothing of apparent interest.

"One small step for a robot, one giant leap for robotkind... Wow, is that a maple leaf? Travel halfway across the galaxy to end up right at home, huh Alex?"

Alex rolled his eyes. "You already know I never set foot in Canada until I was a teenager." He was from the colonies - admittedly from Albion, a Canadian-populated colony, but still.

"Awwww."

Colonel Mauser cleared his throat, and Alex and Claire hopped back to work as the W-Series turned, looking around the gate - more greenery.

Claire glanced at a readout. "Okay, looks human-habitable. Drone's sensors are reporting no electromagnetic anomalies, oxygen-nitrogen-etcetera mix well within human parameters, temperature is a brisk eighteen degrees Celsius positive, pressure is 0.998-I'm-not-rattling-more atmospheres, no apparent toxins, I-could-say-more-but-you-wouldn't-get-it, gravity's around one gee, and in other news-"

"O'Neill."

"-we are clear to send personnel," Claire finished, without skipping a beat.

"Walther?"

Alex flipped through his screens, nodding. "Telemetry's basically received. I'm still gonna want to run an endurance test, but we are good for stage two." He'd especially like to see if they couldn't burn past the purported thirty-eight minute limit by hooking in Shangri-La's reactors. If anything _could_ do it, it would be those sixteen reactors that, together, outgunned the power generation capability of every single power plant presently on Earth put together. Maybe from a distance. Everyone always got so nervous when the words 'fusion reactor' came up...

Colonel Mauser nodded. "Then commence stage two."

Balthazar turned the drone to face the DHD and gate, and froze it in place. "Command laid in with a ten minute delay."

Alex tapped a sequence on his keyboard. "Cutting telemetry." The screens winked out to a standby display.

A few moments later, the 'water' whisked away, the gate going silent. SGC records were accurate - the gate did shut after a short time with no signals passing through it.

The wait time was filled differently for each - some small talk (Claire, Hornst, and whoever they could squeeze it out of), some silent contemplation (Mauser and Virgil), some nervous fidgeting (Mizrahi), some stoically watching the screens and waiting (Balthazar and Grace), and Alex busying himself by running through the already-received data on the gate's operation.

And then, the seven visible chevrons flared, thumping into position. A moment later, the unstable vortex boiled out, and the gate stabilized, open.

"Incoming wormhole," Claire noted, completely unnecessarily.

Looked rather different on the sensors trained at the gate. It was quite likely the only-one-way property was accurate, though they'd have to test it, just in case they could get away with something like that.

"Drone telemetry re-established," Balthazar reported, as the screens lit back up. "All functioning appears nominal... and nothing snuck up on it while we were out of contact."

Two-way signal transmission worked, at least.

Colonel Mauser nodded. "Well then. We can contact home from offworld... now see if we can come back."

"Returning drone to gate." The W-Series unit's view approached the pool of water on the offworld Stargate, and then passed through, screen cutting off.

Approximately five seconds later by the timer Alex had started, and the black-suited, red-and-white-plated drone stepped out from the ring of standing water and onto the deck. As soon as its foot pressed against the deck, it began floating upward - and without anything to grip, it continued to do so, and would probably bonk into the ceiling soon enough. That split-second of adjustment between gravities proved Balthazar was _not_ spaceborn.

Balthazar pulled off the simple input headset, frowning. "... Drone has returned." They'd retrieve it soon enough to run thorough tests on it.

Claire craned her neck back, looking upside down at the audience. "Hey Virgil, wanna hit the button for the next test?"

Lieutenant Virgil rolled his eyes, unfastening and gently pushing off, floating towards Balthazar's seat. He caught it before passing by, halting his momentum. "I may as well. She's unlikely to shut up otherwise."

Balthazar nodded, leaning aside. "Go ahead, sir."

He leaned past her (and around her hair), feet floating up in midair as counterweight to his motions, and tapped a control on her console.

Immediately, a second W-Series drone unfolded from the back of the gate room, and pushed off, floating towards the gate. Less direct control was required for this, they only really needed to tell it to jump (or sit, bark, etcetera) and it knew how to do that.

The drone vanished into the gate with a placid ripple, and Alex hit the timer.

"Telemetry lost," Balthazar reported.

"... Anticipated five second period has passed, drone has not reintegrated," Alex noted when the time came. Well, they'd been told it was one-way... seemed it was.

Colonel Mauser hummed to himself. "Very well. Keep the timer running just in case, and wait for the gate to close. And everyone trade out, we're repeating this test ten more times and I want you rested before I'm sending you offworld."

Alex nodded, unfastening his harness and pressing off the chair as the second operations team floated forward.

Colonel Mauser, and Marita Grace at his side, remained to watch the tests.

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

"Okay, look, General... the Canadians? Fine, I was expecting them anyway. The Brits? Hey, why not? But the _Russians_? _Vietnam_?"

Teal'c understood _part_ of the background behind O'Neill's opposition to this - these 'Russian' and 'Vietnamese' Tau'ri were once enemies O'Neill had fought. But... "I do not understand, O'Neill. They were once your enemies... but I was as well. I personally took you captive, and yet you have spoken for me."

O'Neill clutched his temple. "That's... this is _different_."

General Hammond leaned back in his chair in the briefing room. "You knew this was coming, Colonel. The potential rewards from the gate are too great, none of them can afford for us to amass too much alien technology - we already have plenty, if not enough to satisfy the NID, and it's still getting analyzed and reverse-engineered. Even more once we get a shuttle up there to ship those shattered gliders down here. We're looking at a potential war from people who get left out of the program, and we can not afford one with the gould hanging overhead. They fear we'll use the technological lead we're slowly getting against them."

"But... we... _won't_!" O'Neill half-yelled.

"You won't. I won't. President Nichol, given that he's authorized foreign access, won't. Can we say the same for the next President? Or the one after that? Or everyone in Congress and the Pentagon? Or the NID?"

O'Neill remained silent.

"We were unpopular enough _before_ the planet got bombarded and we failed to inform people about it. We need to make some very generous gestures, fast, before the other five and a half billion people we're down here with start thinking we're trying to squeeze them out of the planet. You heard that five Islamic scholar types have issued a religious opinion that it's _okay_ to kill Americans wherever they find them?"

O'Neill waved a hand dismissively. "It's Osama bin Laden. He'd have said that crap whether or not the gate even _existed_."

Daniel Jackson blinked, looking to O'Neill. "Uh, I'm sorry, who?"

"Saudi Arabian rich kid with an ego complex. Guy's constructed a worldview where he's the only one who can save the world from the corruption of reason, rationality, democracy... He puts on a religious front but it's really all about _him_ being the one who's right - the guy's claimed credit for the fall of the goddamn Soviet Union!"

Samantha Carter cocked her head, hair bouncing a little to the side - it was quite grown out from the first days of SG-1 at this time. "... How would that even _work_?"

"Punk was in Afghanistan. He thinks he was critical in causing the Soviet withdrawal, but honestly he was damn near incompetent." O'Neill's eyes widened slightly at that statement, and he shut his mouth, ignoring the further quizzical looks from the remainder of the team.

A slip? Unfortunately, Teal'c did not quite know this world's history well enough to be sure what the slip was.

"_Anyway_. My point is, Bin Laden is a psychotic who hated us already. That idiot saying we suck and can't you please kill us now is hardly a surprise."

General Hammond nodded. "And that is my point, Colonel." At the slightly raised eyebrow, he explained, "People already hate us. With or without reason. Can we, as a nation, really afford to be actually giving them sane, logical reasons? Absolutely nobody else on the planet wants us to be the sole power on Earth - how would _you_ react to the idea of Russia keeping the gate to themselves and using it to advance their own status both on and offworld?"

O'Neill gritted his teeth. "That's _completely_..."

"There could be a war over the gate, Colonel, people are scared, they're angry, and we're already getting reports of tourists harassed abroad. Whether or not we'd be in the right, whether or not we'd win... a lot of people could die, ours and theirs, and neither deserving it. Is it really worth that?"

"... No sir."

"Which is why we have to share access to the gate. Even without the gould to worry about, we can't afford the fallout from this. _With_ aliens that want us all dead or enslaved? I want the other ninety percent of the world on my side and at their best."

"Fine, but _inside_ Cheyenne Mountain? On... gah!"

General Hammond shook his head. "First off, they're still restricted from access to NORAD any more than a random civilian has. Second, that's just temporary. The SGC's getting a better base decided on and constructed now, and it won't be next door to a critical United States facility."

"A _Russian on my team_ isn't temporary!"

General Hammond's eyes narrowed. "You know your leeway in team selection is a privilege, Colonel O'Neill. Other considerations can and do override that. If Captain Carter transfers, you _will_ have a scientific expert to replace her offworld, whether one of the remaining team members trains to do it, you select an available recruit, or one is assigned to you."

Samantha Carter tentatively brought up her hand. "I don't plan to-"

"It was an example, Captain."

"Oh. Um, sorry."

O'Neill took a deep breath, calming himself. "And what considerations override my selection privilege to put a _Russian_ on?"

"Political. This one came straight from the Commander-in-Chief. Now-"

There was a short knock at the door of the briefing room. All within - SG-1 and General Hammond - turned to face the door, and saw a young woman. Perhaps nineteen by human ages, trim and fit, with pale skin, reddish brown eyes, and short, somewhat shaggy red hair. Unlike the plain green uniforms worn by the soldiers of the SGC, she was dressed in a mottled greens-and-brown camouflage pattern, with a blue-and-white-striped undershirt visible at the gap in the collar. Various insignia decorated the upper portion of the uniform, including a newly-added SGC patch on the shoulder, and where the rank tended to be displayed on Tau'ri uniforms, there was a thick upward-pointing chevron, directly above a thinner one. A dark red beret capped the uniform and meshed strangely with her hair.

She slowly lowered her hand from the door, and spoke in an accented voice. "I... am not too early, yes...? I... did not wish to overhear."

General Hammond shook his head. "You're on time. Come in."

The young woman nodded sharply, stepping in and snapping to attention, bringing her right hand up to her temple in a crisp salute and holding it there as she waited for acknowledgement. "Starshina Arina Volkova, reporting as ordered, sir."

General Hammond stood, returning the salute. "Colonel O'Neill, meet your newest subordinate."

O'Neill snapped his own salute. "General..."

Arina Volkova brought her hand down from the salute and remained at attention, but Teal'c could almost feel a cringe in her even from this distance. Her tension eased slightly at his nod to her presence, but it remained strong.

"I've already heard it, Colonel. You can file a protest if you want, but we both have our orders."

"She's a _kid_! You can't be serious!"

Teal'c cocked his head. He supposed nineteen was young among soldiers of the Tau'ri, but he did not really grasp it intuitively - among the jaf'fa, Arina Volkova would be an experienced campaigner by now, her gender being more object than her age.

Arina Volkova's lips parted slightly before she bit in her words.

But General Hammond caught it. "Starshina?" He stumbled slightly over the rank. "Go ahead."

Her mouth worked slightly as she worded her statement - and presumably translated it from her native language - before she began. "... Colonel, my combat experience not match yours, but it exist. I enlist at age sixteen and was selected for Spetsnaz in initial tour. Second tour began last year, transferred to full Spetsnaz unit. _Have_ seen combat, and willing to learn what you teach."

O'Neill pursed his lips. "... I still..."

General Hammond raised an eyebrow. "Your record says you enlisted at sixteen and fought in Vietnam yourself, Colonel."

O'Neill bit down. "Fine." He jerked his head to indicate the door. "Let's go to the training grounds and see what you've got, Volkova."

Arina Volkova saluted. "Yes sir."

"And you're Master Sergeant for now. We need to translate ranks so people actually know what your authority is."

"Very well, sir."

O'Neill stalked out of the room.

Daniel Jackson cleared his throat. "For what it's worth, welcome to the team. I'm Daniel Jackson."

Samantha Carter nodded. "Captain Samantha Carter."

Arina Volkova nodded to both of them. "... Spasibo za vnimanie." Teal'c supposed it was a thanks, but that was simply through tone of voice - he didn't actually know the language, though he supposed, like English, he should get to it soon. It would likely help, as her English was not the best, and he didn't know how she did his language yet. She turned on her heel, following O'Neill.

Samantha Carter and Daniel Jackson traded worried looks and moved to follow the pair.

Teal'c, however, remained in his seat.

It took but a moment for General Hammond to notice him. "Yes, Teal'c?"

"I do not myself take issue with Arina Volkova." With what he was about to say, he felt he should get that out of the way. "However, I worry that her addition may compromise SG-1. I do not truly grasp O'Neill's protests, but their presence is plain." Culturally speaking, he could probably take issue with her gender, but he'd seen - and married - enough ferocious women that he really had no issues with the idea of fighting females - from there, her skills would yet be determined.

General Hammond smiled faintly. "You're saying good soldiers follow orders, but good commanders give orders their soldiers won't have trouble following."

Teal'c inclined his head.

"All right. You're a bit outside of all this, so maybe you can give some perspective, and you deserve to get it just the same. But don't pass this on to anyone else, especially not Colonel O'Neill."

Teal'c nodded once more. He would of course inform whoever he felt it necessary to inform and the man likely knew it himself, but without reason to do otherwise he would be perfectly willing to follow General Hammond's wishes.

"Just about a decade ago, Earth came out of what we called the Cold War - America and her allies, and Russia and her own, formed two opposing armed camps. There was a lot of ill-feeling, proxy wars, and overall we came damned close to an all-out war that could have shattered the entire world. I'm not really going to go into the reasons for the tension or who I thought was in the right, both sides made questionable and downright ugly moves and considering the amount of Russians coming under my command, I'd really rather not bring it all up, or for that matter poison you against your coworkers with a biased perspective."

"I understand. Alliances and wars among the goa'uld change without warning. I myself have fought alongside those I spent decades fighting. There is always tension as jaf'fa shake off years of having been told of their foe's evils and see one another as brothers in arms... but the latter always happens."

"The problem is, Colonel O'Neill was black ops. He did some of the questionable things from our side, and to do that, he had to internalize the idea of 'Russians are evil' a lot more than the average line trooper. You were easier to accept because he hasn't spent as long fighting the gould, jaffa aren't as outlined as enemies in his mind. A lot of our boys are similar, but O'Neill is the most ingrained of them, and as commander of the flagship team, he's also the example everyone looks to."

"You fear O'Neill will form the core of a group resenting your new allies."

"And because of it, the target of ill-feeling from the Russians who feel disliked. It's going to be tricky enough making sure everyone takes orders from the SGC chain of command first, but operations are going to be impossible if half my command instinctively reaches for their sidearms when they see the other half."

"Then why place such people together in a single team? Would that not bring these ill feelings to boil more frequently?"

"We're going to have cross-team operations anyway. The reason I'm putting Volkova on SG-1 is because I want it to work out. I want O'Neill to work well with a Russian team member, and I want everyone in this command to see that the flagship team is integrating smoothly."

Teal'c raised an eyebrow.

"Don't underestimate O'Neill. I _know_ he sees who people are as more important than what they are - he was the first of us to accept you. I chose Volkova for that role specifically _because_ she's the youngest and cutest of the Russian applicants that passed selection - you've already seen how her age almost instantly switched him from 'it's a damned Russian' to the protective 'she's too young'."

Teal'c tapped his cheek. "... Perhaps. Is she not also related to this 'Andrei Volkov' who I have seen on the television?" Surnames were truly useful things. He'd have to add that to his list of concepts to export to the jaf'fa, along with freedom, clean water, medicine...

General Hammond chuckled, shaking his head. "Yes. That too. I don't want the daughter of a world leader dying on my watch, and putting her under O'Neill enhances the kid's lifespan expectancy quite a bit."

"... I comprehend your plan, but I am... uncertain. I believe you are correct that it will work, as I myself have seen O'Neill's nature, but you are also engendering resentment towards yourself."

"Exactly."

Teal'c raised an eyebrow.

"The one thing that brings people together fastest is shared ill-will against someone else. We already have the gould to do it, but a bit of bellyaching at the boss always helps."

"Will that not damage your own authority, even as it improves the team's cooperation?"

General Hammond nodded, exhaling heavily. "... My time's limited, Teal'c. I was already moving to retire. And with the political mess going on on the surface... Someone's going to take the fall for this, and I'm one of the primary options. I expect before too long I'll be removed from the SGC - whether in disgrace as I take the blame for this attack, or to go on to my retirement while a younger, more prestigious, and let's be honest, more talented, officer takes command now that the SGC is public and critical. Either way, I intend to lay as much groundwork for my successor as I can, and if that includes using myself as an unreasonable boss for people to bond over grumbling about, then that is what it includes."

Teal'c stood. "I do not wish to see you be disgraced, General Hammond, but I understand that I am powerless in this matter. Know that you are neither unreasonable nor disgraced in my eyes. You never shall be."

General Hammond smiled. "I appreciate that, Teal'c. Now go bond with your unit." He waved to the door.

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Thor, Supreme Commander of the Asgard Fleet, did not allow his irritation to show as he initiated the communications device, instantly projecting his image across the millions of light years between his Beliskner's position in the Ida Galaxy and... he refused to call it the Divine Galaxy as the goa'uld demanded.

He looked out across the assembled System Lords - the interior was likely the goa'uld-neutral Hasara Station, though really the vast amounts of gold made most goa'uld facilities blur together. This wasn't all of them, of course, but it was the group presently assembled and interested in whatever had caught their attention now. Cronus, Heru'ur, Nirrti, Yu, Baal, Bastet, Kali, Morrigan, and Apophis - the last looking quite the worse for the wear, any injuries to his body removed by the sarcophagus, but the psychological damage from whatever had happened leaving him quite frazzled.

Thor's lips curled slightly. He missed being able to smile. His initial, birth body had been so capable, but after millennia of cloning, functionality was rapidly degrading. He wanted to go mountain-climbing again... "What prompts the System Lords to ask to negotiate with the Asgard?"

"You well know, you..." Apophis trailed off from his initially heated words, reason catching up with his rage and pointing out that he didn't really want to be slurring the commander of the single most powerful anti-goa'uld fleet in known space.

Not that Thor would have really _minded_ such slurs - the mere existence and flourishing of beings such as these offended him far beyond the worst possible opinion they could hold of him. "I do not. Nor do I have time for socialization." Well, he did, but he'd be socializing with asgard, not mass-murderers, if he could help it.

"Wait," Baal stopped him with an upraised hand. "Tau'ri. The homeworld of humans."

He cocked his head to the side. "Yes?" It had been a while since he'd checked that one out. The Asgard simply didn't have the forces free to war with the goa'uld, so they couldn't afford to be drawing attention to Midgard. A pity, as it was an interesting place - the humans were doing some quite intriguing things on their own, without influence from the Ancients or their technology. "This is not still about Ra, is it? We said almost four years ago that the goa'uld do not have special protection. Ra's demise was due solely to his own actions and the ingenuity of the Firstworlders. Our protection is not withdrawn, and they do not merit censure."

"It is that protection about which we wish to speak," Cronus noted.

Thor simply waited for them to talk. They were always most willing to do so.

"Apophis moved to reclaim the Tau'ri some weeks ago," Nirrti began.

"And was utterly crushed," Heru'ur finished, casting a smugly satisfied look at his long-time rival. Goa'uld did not naturally smile like asgard used to and humans did, they only did so when the host's presence acted up or they were attempting to socialize and manipulate. The 'smile' was a rather rare instinct among living species and goa'uld did not naturally have mouths capable of such gestures even if they had the instinct - but had Heru'ur been human rather than merely riding in one, he would have been smiling at Apophis.

"That is good to hear," Thor noted, lips twisting slightly in the closest _he_ could do to a grin in this degraded body. He perhaps shouldn't be tweaking the goa'uld like this, but he had never been under orders to be _kind_ to the little monsters. Polite would do, nobody in this room hated one another with anything less than the fire of a thousand suns and they all knew it.

"Hear? You DID it!" Apophis roared, lunging from his seat and at Thor...

...'s hologram. Thor tapped a control to back up his view and projection point slightly, simply looking down at Apophis and shaking his head slightly. He really was quite angry if he'd forgotten that. "I have not been in that region of space for some time. Whatever they did to you, they did it themselves. The Asgard had no part in it."

Baal tapped a control on his seat, bringing up a hologram, which Thor studied. A ship confronting a pair of ha'tak, with light humanoid-shaped craft engaging Death Gliders in between them. Flared arrowhead, trailing back into an angular rear section, a simple and efficient shape, coloured a darkish green - either the paint brought a beneficial property, or the hull simply _was_ that colour as on Asgard vessels, painting a ship that size added quite a lot of mass and the design seemed too practical for people who would do that. A very large ship, it was - perhaps twice the size of his own Beliskner, approximately the same as the new class ship under development back home. Maneuvering slower than the ha'tak, but there was a feeling of... force, to it, and a measured gingerness to its movement. It had _far_ more powerful thrusters, but lacked inertial compensators to magnify their effect as Asgard and Goa'uld vessels did, if he had to guess, a hypothesis that seemed borne out by the more cautious maneuvering performed by the humanoid craft - aggressive, but taking care to avoid crossing beyond the human body's force limit, which their thrust was well capable of, while Gliders never needed to concern themselves with such things.

Though as he watched the battle unfold across the room, it was clear that technological superiourity lost to people who knew properly how to _use_ less-advanced technology - the skill of the human-he-presumed pilots was undeniable, though it was hard to compare against the categorically poor training the goa'uld gave to jaf'fa. And the projectile weaponry... the Ancients would have called it 'primitive, but effective'. Thor would call it 'effective'.

Thor looked up. "... And?" The flared-out nose of the ship must have fooled them, it was a favoured asgard touch, gave them a better mounting for forward-fire weaponry, as well as point-defence angles over the body of the ship. But no... this was very much a human design. A natural descendant of the air and spacecraft they'd had when last he was there. However, the fact that that descendant had been born this _soon_... well, that one had him wondering himself, though he'd hardly admit that to goa'uld. "That is not an Asgard ship."

"They certainly could not have built it!"

Thor just looked at Apophis. "Then perhaps they found someone else who is enemy to the goa'uld. Such beings are hardly uncommon. Perhaps the Hebridans? The Tollan? The Tok'Ra?" He didn't think it was any of them... the design simply screamed 'Midgard' too loudly to his experienced eye for military hardware. He wished the list could be longer, but the goa'uld had already taken out the Gadmeer and the Ostorr, and so many others... And Rillaan... Rillaan was unknown to the goa'uld, and Thor truly hoped the Midgardians hadn't stumbled across _them_.

Yu snorted. "Perhaps."

Hm. Wait a moment. "It strikes me that we _could_ go and build them whatever we felt like." Not that they _would_, sure he liked them but he needed to know what kind of people they were before he gave them superweapons. He really would need to drift out to Midgard the next time he had opportunity and see if he couldn't find out what was going on, and to what degree the Asgard could ethically advance their position in the galaxy now that the goa'uld cared about the First World again.

They'd advanced non-PPT worlds before when they hit the 'industrialized enough for the goa'uld to slaughter, but not enough to fend them off' point after they'd evaluated the society to confirm they wouldn't be creating a new goa'uld, though to varying degrees of success - no massive galactic threats, but no galactic threats _to the goa'uld_. Their improved societies had generally been unable to fend off the goa'uld in full... but they'd lasted longer, and one continued to stand, though not interested in saving other worlds. Another continued to stand, not interested in _subjugating_ other worlds - that one especially had forced the Asgard to triple the stringency of their pre-uplift evaluations. At this time, the fact that that was the best they could do was probably Thor's single greatest regret. They needed to stop the Replicators and straighten out this galaxy.

Cronus stood. "The Protected Planets Treaty, subsection fourty-two, dictates that no world may be artificially developed by the Asgard, Thor. Your words grow dangerously close to a treaty violation."

"No _protected_ planet. You have refused to allow the First World on the treaty in the past, and that means there is no treaty protecting them, but there are also no restrictions on what we may do for them. And you know what will happen if you attack, with or without explicit membership in the treaty." He was going to have to be very careful here. The Asgard did _not_ have the forces to stop a concerted goa'uld strike, and if _he_ wasn't yet sure on the idea of technological sharing, then the High Council certainly wouldn't sign off on it. The Asgard really didn't know these people either. So it was back to bluffing. The thrill he always got from this really wasn't something he was proud of - it seemed inappropriate to be enjoying himself while lives hung in the balance.

"The human race exists to serve the goa'uld." Nirrti spoke up. "The treaty recognizes that. The actions you propose go against the spirit of-"

"You may believe what you will about the spirit of the Protected Planets Treaty, goa'uld," Thor interrupted. "But the text is clear. It does not apply to the human homeworld. Unless you wish it to."

Thor attempted another grin at the bug-eyed look on the faces of the System Lords - barring Yu, Baal, and Morrigan, who all remained calm and composed.

Apophis gathered his words first. He was probably still 'first among equals' here. "That is the most foolish thing I have yet heard! Perhaps if they survived through 'just luck' as you say happened to Ra! But they defeated goa'uld vessels in open battle! No human world may advance technologically to the point where they threaten the goa'uld!"

"As determined by the goa'uld," Morrigan noted.

Thor nodded agreeably. "A fair point. I suppose we will simply have to reinforce them ourselves so that they may survive without the treaty, then." Not that they could, but the threat remained useful.

Cronus gritted his teeth. "This is extortion."

"Is it?" Thor shook his head. "These are simply our options. You may choose which you favour - whatever threat the humans, without hyperdrive, pose now, and protected from your assault by law, or whatever threat the humans, after we give them hyperdrive and improve their shields and weaponry, will pose shortly, and protected from your assault by force. The greater threat, as stated by the treaty, is up to the goa'uld to determine."

Baal tapped his cheek. "Or, destroy them now. We can, of course, do that."

"Through our forces... Can you, now?"

As they pondered that, Thor cut the connection. He didn't want to carry this bluff far enough to be caught, and he needed a carrot for these negotiations, since the stick didn't exist. For a concession to make to the goa'uld, he needed authorization from the High Council.

Midgard must _not_ fall. It was the single largest concentration of... not of humanity, but of _life_, in all known space. More than half the sentient population of... everywhere... would be dead, in the best case, and that was something Thor would simply not allow. If necessary, he would go rogue as Loki had. He did not consider it likely to be necessary... but he knew himself well enough that if the High Council refused to take the measures necessary to stop such mass death, he would take them and gladly accept his own fate.

And that was the best case. If that world, with its full population, were _captured_, then the goa'uld would rapidly become large enough to battle the Asgard even if they were _not_ distracted by the Replicators. With such numbers added to their existing technologies... both galaxies would fall, whether to the goa'uld or the Replicators...

Midgard _must not fall_.

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Samantha Carter glanced across the locker room at Arina as the Russian girl changed, a little jealous. Not of her looks, though she was pretty enough, Sam certainly wasn't going to feel threatened by a nineteen-year-old.

Of her _fitness_. That compact body of hers was very, very strong, and spectacularly fast - the girl had consistently outrun _Teal'c_ (though she couldn't match his pure strength), and Sam was pretty sure Arina had lasted five times longer in O'Neill's 'physical exam for the new recruits' than Sam herself had. If Colonel O'Neill was going to consider Arina's performance insufficient for the SG-1 slot, he'd have to boot Sam and Daniel off too.

Speaking of which. "Hey... Volkova."

Arina stilled halfway through pulling her replacement... stripy shirt thing... on, looking back over her shoulder. "Ma'am?"

Sam frowned, shaking her head. "You don't need to stand on the ceremony. This command, and Colonel O'Neill especially, are pretty loose."

The redhead's eyebrow rose, but her expression otherwise remained blank.

"That's actually what I wanted to get at." Sam sighed slightly, looking at the locker. "Look... Colonel O'Neill probably didn't come off at his best to you, but he's really not a jerk. He's just... he doesn't like losing control over his team. He wants to choose the people he has to trust his back to." Her mind flashed back to O'Neill's initial resistance to her membership on the offworld team, and a bit of embarrassment at her assumption it had had to do with gender - she hadn't _thought_ she'd let the 'boys club' atmosphere of the military and restrictions from women in combat roles get to her that much, but... 'reproductive organs on the inside instead of the outside'? Working with SG-1 had really helped her relax and just feel like one of the troopers.

Maybe that was why she felt like helping out Arina - not really gender solidarity, though she wouldn't really _mind_ not being the only woman in the team anymore (or, for that matter, not being the youngest anymore). But just because she knew what it was like getting rejected by O'Neill, and wanted the younger woman to know it'd get better.

Arina nodded, pulling the striped shirt the rest of the way down over her body. "Because I _chose_ to be assigned under commander who hates me."

Wow. The girl had a talent for keeping her voice level even when the context made it obvious as sarcasm. "Look, he doesn't hate you, Volkova. He doesn't even know you."

Arina reached for her camouflage outer jacket, beginning to bring it on. "Knowing not prerequisite to hate, unless you forget almost all war ever. He hate idea of me. Russian, too young... gender not issue, which actually surprising - I heard bad things about American military in that respect. Apologize for presumption."

Sam winced. "Your presumption isn't honestly wrong. The SGC's just a better command like that, and Colonel O'Neill in particular. He really _doesn't_ care what you are, just who you are. Just give him time to see who you are."

Arina adjusted the camouflage jacket as she finished bringing it on, and reached for her red beret. "We see. Ugh. We _will_ see. Know I got that wrong. Hope you right. Would be nice. Isn't necessary. I understand - Colonel spent thirty years training to kill me. Not surprising he dislike. I only avoid returning the feeling by being too young for Cold War. Not worst military environment." She settled the beret over her red hair. "Dedovschina _true_ bullshit."

Samantha considered trying further to convince her, but... she suspected she'd gotten as far as she would. ... Wait a minute. "Wait a second! You don't even have perfect English down, but you learned the swear words?"

Arina blinked, and shrugged. "I soldier."

Sam buried her face in her hands, chuckling. "Come on, I'll show you the cafeteria. You're probably hungry after the workout O'Neill put you through, I know I am and I was just on the sidelines."

Arina nodded, falling in beside Samantha as the two women headed out of the locker room.

"Oh... um, you used a word I don't know. What's... dedovchina?" She _knew_ she'd mangled the word, hopefully it got the idea across...

"Oh! Closest translation... um... 'rule of grandfathers'. Treatment of earlier-service conscripts by later. You know, use newer for chores, humiliation, physical violence." She didn't elaborate further.

"Ah... the word over here is 'hazing' - initiation ritual abuse, right?" Sam remembered hearing that was particularly bad in Russia.

"Essentially. Was doubly unpopular, kontraktniki considered mercenaries, but mostly trailed off by second year. Completely gone in third. Colonel O'Neill less bastard than dedy _and_ actually have excuse, can handle conditions."

Kontraktniki... contract soldiers, people who willingly enlisted instead of conscription? Sam kind of lacked a whole lot of the cultural or linguistic context for this conversation. "This one'll trail off soon enough."

"We will see."

Rather than go back into circles about this, Sam indicated the cafeteria... and was about to step in when the facility shook, as if under an earthquake.

Arina's balance didn't waver, but she blinked. "What is that?"

Sam frowned, and gestured for the girl to follow her, heading down the hall - she'd need to grab one of the elevators. "I doubt it's a natural earthquake. We had another one of these a few hours ago, not too long before you arrived. It's gate static - the Stargate vibrates heavily when two are used in the same stellar region."

Arina nodded, settling in behind her superiour officer. "I read reports... this 'Shadow Mirror' took gate from Apophis ship, yes?"

"It's probably them. They did seem interested in learning about it, and it came with a DHD so they only have to push buttons." The elevator arrived, and Sam opened it with a slash of her ID card through the reader, stepped in, and nodded to Daniel as Arina stepped in behind her. "Coming down to check it out?"

Daniel smiled, fixing his glasses. "Yeah. Who knows, they might need some language help." The elevator doors closed, and it began heading down again.

Sam chuckled, shaking her head. "Liar. You just want to watch."

"Caught me."

"We... allowed?" Arina queried. "Wouldn't control room clog if everyone in base come down to watch?"

Daniel grinned, clapping a hand on the slim girl's shoulder. "The privileges of prestige. You, as part of the flagship explorer team, get to have a place in the control room pretty much whenever."

Sam nodded. "It's mostly because Colonel O'Neill is the second-in-command of the base, I'm considered the science officer, Daniel knows half the languages ever spoken by human lips, and Teal'c is our expert on the goa'uld - you get the benefits, though."

"If say so..."

The elevator reached the control room level with a 'ping', and as the doors opened, all three of them stepped out, moving towards the control room.

The gate technician... Sam really should get around to learning the guy's name one of these days... spoke over the intercom. "Unauthorized offworld activation."

Sam sighed heavily. "This is going to get really nerve-wracking if they don't stop soon."

"Wormhole closed."

Daniel glanced at Samantha. "... Think they're just messing with us?"

"I have no idea."

"... Unauthorized offworld activation."

"... Yes."

They reached the control room, stepping in just in time to see through the window as the gate shut down again, the technician announcing its shutdown. Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c were already there, as was General Hammond, and all of them acknowledged the arrival of the girls and geeks of SG-1 with nods.

Colonel O'Neill shook his head. "This is getting annoying. We can't even _use_ the gate until it stops sending MALPs to that ship."

They'd been tossing the things through to Alpha Site and then letting the Alpha Teams try and send the MALPs back home to see where they ended up - it had been part of General Hammond's retrieval plan for Doctor Fraiser's team, and though everyone had been returned before he got permission for it, they were still using it to explore the current status of Earth's gate. Every MALP had ended up onboard Shangri-La's gate, and been immediately picked up and dragged to a locked room. They were apparently getting a little collection over there.

Samantha nodded, moving to a console to check the readings picked up off the gate. "Mm... a lot of these match what we got this morning. It definitely looks like another in-system gate is being used."

The chevrons lit up once more, and a faint blue light played through the still-closed iris. "Unscheduled offworld activation," the technician announced, rubbing his throat.

There was a thump against the iris. Sam frowned, glancing at the display. "Something just tried to come through. And... wait a second." She tabbed to another display. "Right now, and the last two activations, we received a low-level, deeply scrambled signal through the gate."

General Hammond's cheek twitched, and he leaned over to the communications console, setting up a multi-band transmission. "This is General Hammond of Stargate Command. I would very much appreciate if whoever's on the other end of that would stop and explain themselves."

The console lit up with the response, nearly instantly. "Ah, sorry about that. This is Specialist Alex Walther, Shadow Mirror. We were just running some gate ops tests." Powerful, rich voice, with a Canadian accent...

Walther... wasn't that the guy Doctor Fraiser had mentioned?

Colonel O'Neill coughed into his hand. "Could ya please stop taunting us with how your gate's preventing ours from working?"

"Actually, that's what we were working on. It seems being hooked up to a DHD makes our gate the Earth primary. We've unhooked it and you're the primary again. Gates go here now. We were going to contact you after we'd run a few more experiments to fully confirm it."

Teal'c raised an eyebrow. "Why would you devote effort to giving the gate to another?"

"Why not? We certainly don't have any real benefit from cutting you off, and your explorer corps continuing to work decreases the odds of another alien battlegroup trying to wipe out the planet."

"You wish to protect the Tau'ri?"

"The whonow?"

General Hammond and the experienced members of SG-1 traded looks - Arina just looked a bit confused by what they'd all obviously noticed.

Daniel leaned over to the comm mike. "'Tau'ri' is the goa'uld word for the inhabitants of Earth. It means the people who threw off alien rule for the first and only time. We are the only enemies of the goa'uld that we know of... though clearly you are as well."

"Ah, gotcha. Well then... no. I do not wish to protect the Tau'ri. I wish to protect _everyone_. I _am_ Tau'ri. I'm cleared to say that much."

General Hammond nodded. "We've been bouncing that theory... but you can't be from Earth. Earth's technology is nowhere near as advanced as yours."

"So, what, are you from the future or something?" O'Neill cut to the chase.

There was silence for a moment. "... Yes and no. We're not from _this_ future."

"An alternate reality, further ahead?" Daniel queried.

"As far as we've been able to figure. The divergence point looks like it was earlier, though, so far as we know we've had no Stargate or 1998 CE alien invasion."

"So... why are you here?"

"I'm _not_ cleared to say that much."

"What's your world like?"

"You don't want to visit."

"Running? Your people have said your ships are arks."

"Maybe."

Colonel O'Neill put a hand on Daniel's shoulder, shaking his head. "Forget it, he isn't saying anything he doesn't want to. Let's move on to the 'ships' part, as in plural? How many do you have, and where?"

"... Seriously?"

"Had to try."

"What are your intentions here?" General Hammond asked.

"Two. First, the safety and security of the people of Earth, and anyone else we find that merits the help. Second, building up our own forces - you've probably seen Outer Heaven on telescopes."

"To a degree. We know your ship is in the asteroid belt. Are you building a base out there?"

"I don't really need to answer that one, do I?"

"Simply confirming." General Hammond turned to SG-1. "Any other questions any of you have in mind?"

Sam nodded, leaning over to the comm. "What was that teleportation system you used?"

"System XN. It's how we got here and now as well. I know you want to know how it works, but you wouldn't tell me if I asked you about the gate, would you?"

Samantha shook her head. "Not until authorized. I wouldn't want to hand over potentially dangerous information to someone I don't even really know."

"Then you understand," Walther noted.

Sam sighed. "I guess I do. Maybe later..."

"Why haven't you really opened up contact with Earth yet?" Daniel's question.

"Political conditions change, and you're already in a state of flux after the revelation of alien threats and our own presence. Any promise a soldier makes, a politician can turn into a lie. Any promise a politician makes, the next politician can betray. Shadow Mirror will not provide information that could put our objectives at risk until conditions have at least partially stabilized and we can feel reasonably assured that nobody will use that information against us. To a degree, we trust you, as individuals. But you're members of an organization, and at this point we have no way of knowing what other members will do with any information we provide."

O'Neill winced. "Okay, I see what you mean. We don't have the best record on that."

"Mm. Don't take blame for it, we've inherited that record ourselves and you're unlikely to have had part in it."

O'Neill grinned. "So what are the odds of technology exchange? I want one of those 'Gespensts'."

"As far as military technology, what I just said applies. You get stuff when we can be reasonably sure it's not going to bite us in the back. If we can be reasonably sure, you will get it, we're here to benefit Earth in the first place. For now, keep an eye on the patent office, we're going to be passing some starters to get your industry practiced, and medicines to reduce sickness in the third world... that kind of thing. I didn't actually invent it, but do pass the royalties on to my account anyway, since we _are_ giving this to you, and it will be useful to participate in your economy."

General Hammond frowned. "... You have an _account_?"

"You seriously think 20th-century computer security can withstand 22nd-century computers? Well, if we can be sure it doesn't come back to haunt us, it will before long, but not just yet. Try to actually _use_ what we've got - I can assure you that it works, but it's not going to do anything if the big companies shut it out because they've been making money just fine the old way."

"Those smaller companies that will be trying your new methods... they'll be yours, won't they? Dummy corporations?"

"Some. There are always people willing to try new things, so I'm sure there'll be local groups doing it. Really, all I'm asking is to make sure that if a company makes a better product - as defined by both price and effect and all - that you make sure they don't get shut out by the ones already there simply because they lack inertia."

"I expect that will be happening anyway. We can't afford to slow down our pace of technical development now that we're at war. I don't exactly have authority in that regard anyway."

"Fair enough. Oh, though we are willing to transfer information in exchange for information of equal value. If you get something good - especially salvaged alien technology - then we'll be willing to give you a fair exchange for the fruits of your research. No point doubling up and re-researching the wheel. This also applies to offworld intelligence."

General Hammond raised an eyebrow. "I'll keep that in mind, but I don't expect I'll have the authority to accept."

"Of course, this is to be passed on to your superiours."

"So," O'Neill began. "What does all this mean in terms of the gate?"

"You'll have to ask your politicians about that. Our own gate will be detached from the DHD unless we are actively sending something through - even then, we might end up building an emulator that doesn't put us as priority, like you have. Our teams will return by jumping the gate stream to the next gate from the primary."

"You mean the power surge method?" Sam queried.

"Yes, we've just confirmed that it works. So your gate will remain primary. Traffic will default to your facility, unless specially diverted to ours. You may resume gate operations whenever you feel like."

"Unless you're sending a team through," General Hammond pointed out.

"Well, we're not shutting it down. We'll take steps to minimize interference with your own operations... Oh, right. Just a second."

Sam glanced at her console as a transmission came in. "He's sending a code."

"Rig your GDOs to double-transmit. While your returning teams should open up radio contact first to make sure they're returning to the right facility, if you're bugging out in a hurry, there's not exactly going to be time. The code I've sent you will identify SGC personnel to the Shadow Mirror gate crews. We're going to be installing our own iris soon, and it would just get... awkward for all concerned if your evacuating personnel splatted on our windshield."

"That is... appreciated. I will see if we can return the favour."

"Oh, and O'Neill told me to tell you that you can also use our access code to drop by for a visit if you feel like it. And she also told me to pass on Miss Grace's regards for Doctor Jackson, for some reason... no idea why Miss Grace didn't tell me herself if she wanted the message passed..." he mumbled.

"Ah... um... thank you?"

Colonel O'Neill paused. "Hey, about that name..." General Hammond's expression on their debriefing had really been something to see...

"Yes, we ran a genetic test. It's likely. Don't ask me the details, even she doesn't intimately know hundred-and-fifty-years-old family history, and she certainly hasn't told me."

O'Neill frowned, and nodded.

"Let me just pass you to Mizrahi for a minute. She's our linguist, but we only know Coptic, and the jaffa language isn't directly analogous to it, so we'd appreciate if you could give us a sense of how it works now."

Daniel looked to General Hammond.

Hammond frowned, and nodded. "... Go ahead. Language information isn't classified."

"Ah, and we'll open up contact again in a few hours. Any answers you have by then would be appreciated, but either way, we're going to be sending your probes back, unless you're not given authorization to open the iris and accept them. The things are probably fairly expensive for you. Now... here's Mizrahi."

A young girl's voice came over, speaking... Sam couldn't quite identify what she was saying. It sounded like the Ancient Egyptian descendant spoken out in the galaxy, but not _quite_.

Daniel obviously got it, as he responded in 'standard' - what was that language even called? "Okay, pronunciation and word structure has shifted a little over time, like this."

Sam, General Hammond, and O'Neill drifted to the back of the room, whispering to not be caught on the radio as the two linguists spoke, with Teal'c chiming in to assist - Arina seemed to stand off to the side, not quite sure of which group to go with. "She sounds far too young," Samantha noted. "By voice I'd say... maybe sixteen at most?"

Colonel O'Neill nodded. "And Grace looked _way_ too experienced to be eighteen... you thinking these Shadow Mirror people are using child soldiers?"

General Hammond frowned, shaking his head. "Don't jump to conclusions. We're talking about people who claim to be from the 22nd century, it could just be life-extension treatments that make them seem younger. Keep an eye on it, but don't assume. For now, once our guests sign off, we'll get to work on bringing back our Alpha Team and pass on what we have up the chain of command... I'm going to need to head off-base before too long, so let's get this done while I'm here."

Sam nodded. "Yes sir."

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Doctor Lemon Browning floated into the bridge, pushing off the doorway with a hand to approach her seat. "Have you figured out where we are yet?"

Primera Black nodded from her crew station, and her voice synthesizer gave words to her response: "I think so." Lemon's newly developed ones still weren't perfect, but they at least weren't as patently disturbing as the original stilted robotic voices, and they let mutes like Primera live a fairly normal life. She keyed in commands, and a planet map drew itself out on Lemon's console. "Long range analysis indicates we are in the Sol System, the sun and planets are in appropriate positions, as well as constellation analysis. We are out near the orbital range of Pluto. The planet itself is on the other side of the system."

Lemon nodded, levering herself into her seat and buckling in. "I suppose that explains why we haven't had much response on Flash yet. How have the repairs gone?"

"Well," William Black - Primera's elder brother - responded from his own station. "Wonderland is pretty close to working order. And Sierra-"

"Ah, Lemon, my dear, where were you?" the man's voice came over the radio from the ship nestled alongside Wonderland - Sierra de la Plata.

Lemon rolled her eyes. "I was checking on W-15, Jail." The man insisted on that nickname - his proper name was Doctor Jacob Lauro - 'JL' - Scaglietti, but... Well, Lemon called things what they called themselves, not what an outside viewer thought they should be.

"Ahhhh, wonderful. How is he doing?"

Lemon waved a hand, though he couldn't see it. "Same as before. The psychological imprint we used to make his mind doesn't stabilize easily. The baseline was a very devoted, duty-bound man, and we'll need to find him an ideal to dedicate himself to or he can be expected to behave erratically."

"I really don't understand why you didn't just go whole cloth on his psyche like we did the others. They are all essentially stable, other than Tredieci."

Lemon's eyebrow twitched. "You can guess. I'm not explaining it to you. And at least stop using your Italian nicknames on official forms, not everyone knows them." She at least knew them from sheer exposure to Scaglietti - 'Tredieci' was W-13, one of the more experimental of the W-Numbers.

"Oh now? I was expecting you to say it would enable us to resurrect our fallen soldiers. Is it, perhaps, something _personal_? Hmmmm, 'Lemon'?"

"You're going to shut up now."

Scaglietti laughed. "Of course, of course. Your father really wasn't one of the Federation's finest, after all..."

Targeting data scrolled across Lemon's console, and she blinked, looking across the bridge at Primera Black. "Primera!"

Scaglietti chuckled. "Ahhh, loyalty. Very well, I'll stop."

The Wonderland's guns went silent.

"Primera, I appreciate the consideration, but we really shouldn't threaten to shoot our comrades. There are other people aboard that ship."

Her voice synthesizer spoke: "I was not going to. It was to communicate a point."

Lemon rubbed her temples. "I would dock your pay for that stunt if we had any money. Jesiah, please d..." She paused, and turned from the Wonderland's captain to Primera's brother. "William, please discipline her for that once this shift ends."

Jesiah Black snickered. Yes, he would, relying on that man to maintain discipline was... not the most workable idea.

"So, Lemon. You're in command for now, what shall we do?" Scaglietti queried. "We're something approaching fourty astronomical units from Earth, and it has been ten hours since our arrival."

Lemon's eyes flicked upward for a moment as she calculated. "We'll hold position for another fifty hours or so. It takes light speed and radio messages seven hours to reach the sun from this position, and the other missing ships could be anywhere in the system. It could be thirty hours from our initial Flash to the time we get a first response, and it will be more difficult to make contact if we're not in the same position. Keep repairs going. If we pass fifty hours from here, we can assume we won't receive a response, and begin accelerating towards Earth."

"Mm... and what of the other units in the Lykeios-2 jump group?"

"... I couldn't say. We expected a degree of instability in our travel. Doctors Radom and Hamill may be lost. As may Walther and O'Neill from the Aguieus group."

"You at least have Radom's final project aboard, I should hope?"

"I have the Shrike. As long as you have the Raptor, their work can be completed in their stead." And Lemon was seriously considering finding whatever genius had failed to put the ATX mastermind's latest project data aboard _all_ of the ships and sticking a rifle in his face. The fact that it had been a rush and an emergency not only did not excuse slipping up like that, but it made it even worse. As it was, Lemon was going to need to reverse-engineer what had thus far been done on the prototypes before development could continue - at least she'd had some role in the project beforehand, but they needed to get the blueprints and construction data reassembled before they could continue. If they were missing parts, they'd need to see if the machines existed in this world and seize them to redevelop from, and _that_ would be worth a whole other headache.

She could hear Scaglietti's smile. "The Falcon... let me see..." He hummed to himself, making a huge production and theatrical show of the search. Lemon _knew_ he'd already checked, but didn't consider it a big enough deal to call him on it. "Ahah! I do!"

"Good. Go check on the rest." And leave her alone... he was an excellent scientist, and he could be honestly fun to be around, but only in limited doses.

"By your command, my dear!" The link cut.

Lemon gnawed on her upper lip, looking out at the blackness of space - the sun was faintly visible in the distance, but there was really nothing else out here. She really hoped they got something within fifty hours. Anything. A million people had left TLI, both soldiers and refugees, and the idea of that many people lost without a trace was terrifying in and of itself. But Lemon had been the primary worker on System XN - it was because of her that the hundred thousand people aboard Wonderland and Sierra had made it out alive before the Beowulves slaughtered them. Having failed the other nine hundred thousand... she didn't know if she could bear that. She'd met some of those people - she had personally promised Selain Meneth safety aboard the Avalon. And... Axel.

Her upper lip split under her teeth, spilling a bit of blood into her mouth. _Lord, I'm still a mess, aren't I?_ She sort of wanted to see if Excellen Browning lived in this world. See how things had turned out. Maybe seeing how she could have ended up would help her move forward.

Or maybe seeing how she _should_ have ended up would send her right back to the existential angst that she'd only come out of after changing her name and meeting Axel. But she just wanted an answer so she could stop _moping_ over it. At least she could be depressive about what was actually going on in her mind instead of what _might_ happen in her mind.

But she really hoped Axel was all right. She really shouldn't have left without him... but she knew he wouldn't have gone until he was sure they'd escaped safely. And she... Beowulf was complicated. Axel would need to be able to fight freely without having to worry about people in the firing line if he were going to take him. And... Lemon was afraid of looking at Beowulf. He brought back strange thoughts in her head. Someone else's thoughts... maybe.

Lemon shook her head, unbuckling and moving from her seat. She wanted to be _doing_ something. Too much time to think - or at least, to think about 'things' rather than a project - and she'd turn herself into a mess.

Then a crackling sphere of multicoloured light blossomed out of nothing in front of them.

William Black's eyes widened, and he whistled. "Gravity and electrostatic wave patterns detected! Comparing to profile... XN Aguieus!"

"Hoo-yah!" Jesiah declared with his characteristic excitement.

Lemon's lips curled into a slight smile. "Contact Sierra de la Plata and go to Ready 1 status. We'll relax once we get confirmation, but just because it looks like Aguieus doesn't mean it's Colonel Mauser." She pushed back to her seat and buckled back in.

The Wonderland and Sierra de la Plata nosed down slightly, gun batteries and missiles locking onto the dimensional distortion in front of them, hangars sliding just slightly open - not exposing the whole area, but just the catapult at the rear to allow them to launch.

And the sphere snapped out of existence, revealing a third, identical ship, its own weapon batteries up and ready, with PTs and fighters arrayed carefully around it in a barrier formation.

"Receiving transmission," Primera stated, feeding it to a side screen.

A familiar, sharp-featured face appeared on that screen, long green hair spilling down his back, and circlet in place. "I am given to understand that I know you."

Lemon's own console lit up as Vindel Mauser's circlet transmitted a brainwave pattern... matched the one she had on profile. She transmitted her own as the ships exchanged more conventional codes. After what had been happening with the Beowulves, brainwave identification had become a Shadow Mirror standard - just because you were there and looked the same, same fingerprints, retinal pattern match, matched the DNA, and you had the codes... it didn't mean your mind was your own.

Lemon smiled, keying up the camera to transmit her own image. "Well, I know you. It's good to see you, Vindel."

Vindel nodded. "And you, Lemon. It's good to finally have some good news."

"The others? ... Axel?"

"I am sorry. Nothing yet."

"... I see."

Vindel took a deep breath. "We have a base under assembly in the asteroid belt. I will transmit its location. Have your ships calculate a course to it - it should take about twenty days for them to arrive at full regular thrust, but Walther tells me he doesn't want to risk carrying much more than one ship with System XN just yet."

Lemon nodded to Primera, and the girl set to work. "I suppose you came out yourself since System XN is faster than radio transmission?"

"Yes, and it gave us an opportunity to run System XN through a bit of a shakedown. It seems to be fairly stable within its current load."

The Wonderland and Sierra de la Plata turned onto their new course - not directly towards the asteroid belt facility the label called 'Outer Heaven', but on an intercept course, where gravity and Outer Heaven's own orbital motion would carry the two ships to the same place at the same time, twenty days from now. And slowly began accelerating. They'd be a bit low on fuel after a full month's worth of full standard thrust, but Lemon was sure Shangri-La would have stocks ready for them.

Shangri-La began a stately turn, moving to match the pace and acceleration of the other two ships.

Vindel glanced down, probably at his D-Con. "While we're getting under way, assemble a few things and people to bring aboard Shangri-La. I want to get to work as soon as possible on a number of projects, and most of the work is on Shangri-La right now."

Lemon raised an eyebrow. "What do you need?"

"You and your team. Scaglietti and his. Your Zuvorg translator emulation project - we've got some use for it now." He ignored Lemon's smirk. This really was the best job she'd ever had. "The ATX Killer prototypes - I don't want to be facing Mark IIIs before we finish those. And the materials and data for Project Hyperion. Once Shangri-La is back at Outer Heaven, I'll come out here without the ship and begin jumping Wonderland and Sierra closer. O'Neill tells me that could shave the transit time down to a day or two, but I want the critical components in place first, in the event something goes wrong and we end up waiting a month of travel time."

Lemon frowned. "What's going on? Project Hyperion is a lot more iffy than just finding Helios."

"Yes, it is. When Helios is in the same universe. We missed."

... She'd expected a somewhat less anticlimactic resolution to her worries and thoughts about Excellen. "You're going to have to fill me in on the details."

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Jack O'Neill was, frankly, just glad to be out the gate by now. It'd been weeks since they'd _done_ anything other than training and he was getting stir-crazy. Much more training and they'd start carving their edge off instead of honing it.

Sure, he had a Russian kid at his side, and her alternate uniform and beret made her stand out quite distinctly, but honestly, she was at least quiet and he was more sure she wouldn't foul up in the first combat situation than he had been of Carter or Daniel. Not _sure_ of course, but he was self-aware enough to remember that Carter and Daniel had passed out of his basic training at a lower level than Volkova had entered it. So if she shot him in the back it was more likely to be a betrayal than an accident.

Yay for progress?

Russian aside, though, at least he was offworld. Things were getting annoying back home - President Nichol was sucking up calls for his impeachment, and whole swathes of new people, many of them Russian, were getting underfoot and settled in back on base. The SGC had doubled in size in the last month alone. Not to mention the minor riots and tourist harassment _still_ running, though those at least were trailing off now that the President was getting blasted.

Jack really wasn't too sure what to think about the President sucking it up. He didn't really like watching the guy get hit for what had happened, but the President _had_ screwed up, and hard.

Jack had plenty of time to think about it, though. The meatheads weren't really necessary on this first mission out the gate - reopening contact with Nasya. This was geekland - the Nasyans were helping Carter and SG-4 set up a research facility of some kind, and Daniel was Danieling up more stories about Nasyan history and culture. So he was mostly standing back and talking with Teal'c and a few interested Nasyans.

Volkova was standing beside him, whispering something to herself - if Jack strained, he could hear her repeating sections of the conversation, trying to work on her galactic, he supposed. He shook his head. She really had overpacked - she was carrying a rather large backpack, with what looked like a goddamn bundle of _tent_ poles sticking up and down along its side, and while she was handling the weight well, it couldn't be comfortable for long periods. If this had been an actual exploration mission instead of a milk run to break in the new recruit, he'd have gutted her pack down to something easily carriable, but since it _was_ a milk run, he was just going to leave her to carry it for hours of walking, talking, and work, and nurse the muscle cramps tonight - let her body learn why SG teams packed light. He wasn't going to complain about the hand shovel she had dangling at her right leg, though - he knew that one was non-negotiable for Spetsnaz.

Not a bad choice of main weapon, though - pistol grip, reverse-canted forward grip, a thin rod of a side-folding stock, and a hauntingly-familiar Russian-style banana-curved magazine marked it as a Hungarian-made AMD-65, their own equivalent of the modernized AK-47. He'd traded shots with people using it before - also wearing crimson berets like Volkova, so he suspected she was from the same unit. It wasn't the most overpoweringly accurate weapon out there, but it was light, easy to bring to bear, and with a hard-hitting cartridge, for an assault rifle. The MP-5 he was using was lighter and easier to carry on long missions (by about a tenth of a kilogram), but on the other hand, there was absolutely no comparing the cartridges - it took bursts from the MP-5 to take down jaffa, sometimes very long bursts, while a properly-loaded AMD-65 could probably do it with single shots. If she felt like hauling around a heavier weapon offworld, well, it was her responsibility and if she could handle the weight, he wouldn't mind the firepower added to the squad - not to mention that she was trained and familiar with her weapon, not an MP-5. But she was going to have to tune her load, because she was carrying way too much right now.

He was _still_ trying to convince the brass to switch the SGC's stocks to PDWs, or at least carbines - something light, easy to carry and use, with half-decent armour-piercing capabilities. They'd just tossed explorer teams MP-5s out of the military police armoury. Probably be another three years before they cut all the red tape and finally got the guns he'd asked for back in the first month... He was a career soldier and didn't really want to be anything else, but he knew the Pentagon. There were probably still debates running about getting something American-made, despite the fact that the US didn't actually make anything in the battle niche SG explorer teams needed and the MP-5 they were already using were German... He actually kind of hoped Volkova did well simply so he could request AMD-65s to replace the MP-5s - there was no way the US personnel would actually be issued them, but the idea of buying _Russian_ (Hungarian) might light a fire under the bean counter's asses. Maybe even start recommending SG members buy with their own money if nothing materialized soon...

Of course, Teal'c was still satisfied with his staff weapon.

"Hey, T, been meaning to ask ya."

The looming jaffa raised an eyebrow.

"Why the staff?"

The eyebrow rose.

Jack shrugged. "I've seen you on the range and the training ground. You seemed to be using our weapons just fine, and you've said you like 'em... so why the staff? I mean, no offence, but they're unwieldy as hell, I'd consider shooting anyone who made me use those things."

Teal'c nodded solemnly. "I intend to. With it."

"Hah?"

"I served the goa'uld with a staff weapon. I will destroy them with a staff weapon. And then I will use whatever weapon I please - as will all jaf'fa."

Jack hummed. "Well, good luck on that." Not really much else to say. Jack was special forces, his philosophy was that the best weapon for the man was the one he felt right having in his hands, so he certainly wasn't going to press anything.

Volkova spoke up from beside Jack. "... Why?" Still a bit of an accent on her galactic.

Teal'c cocked his head. "Why do I wish to destroy the goa'uld and free my people?"

Volkova shook her head. "Nyet... Why you serve?"

Teal'c's eyes widened, and Jack could see him swallowing.

"Oy, watch it Volkova," Jack interrupted. "He's been in a damn bad situation for a long time and he doesn't need you badgering him 'cause your country got bombed once."

She suddenly turned a borderline-murderous glare on him, biting down hard enough that if anything had been in her mouth it would be snapped in half.

Shit. Jack had been afraid she'd signed up for the 'coolness' factor of shooting at aliens, but it was worse. It was personal, like it was for Daniel and Teal'c, and he'd just stepped on it. Just the same... he returned the glare degree for degree. "Yes, _Master Sergeant_?"

She averted her gaze. "... Apologies. Not... not skilled in getting point across. Did not intend insult."

"What was your intent?" Teal'c rumbled.

"... To understand. Why they serve. What they trying to accomplish. Why they willing to murder thousands."

Teal'c took a deep breath. "... The jaf'fa are not an evil people, Arina Volkova. We have been brought up from birth to believe that the goa'uld are gods. That they must be served - that it is not merely a worthy use for a life, but the only worthy use for a life."

Volkova's expression looked about as befuddled as if Teal'c had said the jaf'fa served the goa'uld because a divine albino lemur named Jerry had commanded it.

Jack snickered. "Atheist?"

Volkova blinked. "Nyet. Or... yes. By default. Never thought about enough to care. Was never an issue."

"Well, it _is_ an issue for jaffa. They have to think about it every day, because they have their god screaming in their face like a drill sergeant, and they've been told every day what their answer should be. It ain't easy to think of your own answer to ethical issues when you've already got one to default to and everyone around you saying the same - whether or not they actually think it themselves." Frankly, Jack didn't know if he'd have been able to develop his own sense of morality as Teal'c had in conditions like that.

Teal'c nodded. "An appropriate summation."

Her brow scrunched up in thought. "... I suppose I fortunate. I... understand theory, but not quite grasp intuitively."

Jack nodded. "Like a Canadian with an air conditioner."

Both Teal'c and Volkova looked at him with identical 'I have no idea what the fuck you're talking about' expressions.

He grinned. "Say you're in a warm climate like the tropics. You'll need to turn on air conditioning to stay comfortable." At their nods of 'understanding you so far', he continued. "But Canada's really, _really_ cold. Canadians just aren't used to thinking of heat as something they need to get rid of. While a Canadian'll know it's uncomfortably hot, and knows about the air conditioning, she won't turn it on as a matter of course whenever she steps into a room - it can take her half an hour to realize _why_ she's too hot and what she can do about it." He was speaking from experience here - the issue had come up _five times_ on missions he'd done alongside Canucks. Three of those were all the same person, too... "You know it, but you don't feel it. You get me?"

Teal'c and Volkova traded looks, turned back to him, and chorused, "If you say so."

"Bah."

"I would be honored to ask you something." The reason the unfamiliar female voice caught Jack's attention wasn't just because of the strange choice of wording. There was also the fact that she was _speaking English offworld_.

He turned, wide-eyed, to face her, and while he was sure Teal'c and Volkova did similarly, he was too gobsmacked to look at them. The speaker was a tall, curvy, well-formed woman, dressed in the rough-sewn dull-coloured clothing of the Nasyan villagers, but lacking the patterned tattoos on the cheeks. Shoulder-length, neatly-ordered hair of a pale, almost greenish-looking blonde, and green eyes. "Uh... go ahead?"

The woman nodded. "Is you are American?"

Jack licked his lips as he parsed that. "... Yeah. What I'm wondering is how you know that. Kinda on the wrong planet to." The woman's English really wasn't the best.

One of the Nasyans - a man with shortish hair decorated with beads and a cap over top of it... Jack thought his name was Quinta... leaned over, speaking in 'galactic': "Do you know Lamia? Is she from your world?"

Teal'c shook his head. "That is what we wish to determine. Who is this?"

The woman - Lamia, Jack presumed - curtsied. "I am she who appeared on this world, and is the Lamia Loveless." The fact that he could partially understand that sort of disturbed Jack. An irritated expression drifted across her face before it returned to calm neutrality. She obviously knew how bad she was at this language. Making Volkova look skilled...

Teal'c raised an eyebrow. "Appeared on this world?"

Loveless nodded calmly. "I was is arrived approximation three months ago..." She took a breath, attempting to speak again. "I unknowing how... stars did not look as was from Earth... Nasyans sheltered she who..." She trailed off, giving up.

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Kidnapped by the gould?"

Loveless shook her head. "Lamia Loveless did not unsee them. I am uncertain."

"... You mean didn't see them."

She nodded. "The chain of events is unclarity."

Jack hummed to himself. "All right, Teal'c, get back to the gate and make a call for home. Tell them to look up 'Lamia Loveless', and that we're gonna be taking a poor little lost soul back to Earth when we head home." He tried to get the rest of the message through with his eyes. He certainly wasn't trusting this woman off just what she'd said, but if people were scattering offworld from Earth even in the modern era, that really needed investigating, and they deserved to go back home. Hopefully a check of census records, medical check, etcetera could reveal whether they'd want to welcome her with open arms, or open cuffs. He didn't really like having to make this kind of decision when General Hammond was off-base, but that was just the way it'd developed.

Teal'c nodded after meeting Jack's eyes for a little while, and made his way across the beach to the Stargate, winding through the wagons the Nasyans had brought to help the crews, and the half-built huts that made up the first iteration of the 'facility' (they were so getting better later). They weren't building their research camp that far from where the gate sat on the shore of a placid lake - with utterly Canadian looking mountains and forests in the distance - so it didn't take long before he was at the DHD and 'thunking' the symbols for Earth.

As Teal'c dialed, Jack's ears twitched. There was an odd howling sound, faint in the distance... He turned to face it, and swore. "Death gliders!"

Everyone in earshot - Teal'c, Volkova, Loveless, Quinta, as well as Carter, Daniel, and some of the members of SG-4 - instantly turned to look at him, and then followed where his finger pointed. At the two rapidly approaching gull-winged shapes - goa'uld Death Gliders.

Orange bolts began firing from the cannons slung under the middle of their wings.

Not in his direction, the staff cannons were hitting land further down, among the trees a little ways from the beach - the Nasyan village.

Jack gritted his teeth, mind flashing through scenarios, options, what he had to hand... which was damned little.

He'd fired a lot of bullets and staff blasts at Death Gliders over the past year, and not once had they done anything. If he even had a grenade launcher, he'd try it, but nothing like that even existed on this planet.

There was no way they'd win a fight against even one glider, let alone the others that had to be waiting in the wings. Nasya was lost. They had to run... though not alone.

So about half a second after the gliders fired their first shots, as they began firing their second, he whirled to point at Teal'c. "T, finish that dialing and tell Hammond we're coming in, under fire, with refugees!"

He turned to the rest of his team, not needing to see whether Teal'c did it or not, and was gratified to see Volkova running down the beach in the direction of the Nasyan village, already catching up with and pulling ahead of Carter and Daniel. ... Wow, Loveless was keeping pace with Volkova.

Somewhat unnecessarily, he added. "And everyone else, get the Nasyans to the gate, now!" At that, SG-4 snapped into action as well.

Jack brought up his MP-5, jogging after his team and drawing a bead on the lead glider as it swept overhead and began curling around towards the village again.

Sure, it _probably_ wouldn't do anything, but who knew? The four thousandth bullet he tagged a glider with might just get lucky, and failing that it'd at least distract or rattle the pilot a little. Even if that worked, he felt better with his finger on the trigger than sitting around waiting.

The other SGC soldiers apparently decided he had a pretty good idea, bringing their own weapons up and aiming at his target.

Success. They'd at least distracted it from its next run on the village - it arced up... and then nosed down, flipping around to make a run across the beach where the soldiers stood.

Its wingmate continued on to the village, and Jack just shook his head. No coordination... jaffa always fought like they were trying to get high scores, not get the job done. Competing against each other, not the enemy.

You _never_ abandon your partner, no matter what you think of him or how easy the job looks - something could always go wrong and you need each other to save your asses.

Unfortunately, nothing went wrong this time, and as the orange plasma bolts slammed into the sand, fusing droplets and patches of glass, Jack ceased firing, rolled to the side, and came back up to finish off his current magazine into the glider's rear.

It continued on without caring about the damage, strafing its way down the beach. Bolts of plasma slammed into wagons, lighting them on fire and blowing them away.

The SG team members were combat-trained enough to duck aside before they got hit and the glider didn't or couldn't turn to follow them with its guns.

The Nasyans weren't. Quinta's eyes bugged out as a staff cannon blast connected directly with his chest, and he flew back, sprawling out next to one of the burning wagons. And he wasn't the only one... a lot of the locals who'd been out here to help the construction, running towards the gate or still standing around shell-shocked...

Loveless was fine, having sidestepped the blasts, and was now moving after the work crews - she reached out for the collar of one man's shirt, hauling him up bodily, one-handed, and almost threw him in the direction of the gate with a short bark of "Run!"

She continued towards the village, repeating the treatment on everyone she reached. Carter and Daniel weren't far behind her, and doing much the same - the first Nasyans were now getting through the gate, Teal'c moving away from it and helping people who'd stumbled make the rest of the distance.

Jack frowned. Speaking of not abandoning your teammates... he didn't see Volkova. Where the hell had she bugged off to? He was going to throw a fit when they got home if she'd froze up under fire, or took a staff.

Jack rose, swapping his empty magazine for a fresh one and moving swiftly down the beach, looking carefully at the bodies he passed. That glider was going to be coming back around again, it'd be able to take at least one more run at the beach without losing any time before it could continue on to the village.

And slightly longer-term - Jack's 'long term' was five minutes from now - he sure as hell wasn't going home with one of his team unaccounted for, whether or not he'd wanted her assigned. At bare minimum he was taking Volkova's body for her folks to bury.

A flash of red caught his eye, and he turned to see the slim Russian girl huddled up behind one of the wagons and fiddling with her backpack, where she'd taken it off and let it lie on the ground... what the hell? The tent poles?

"Volkova, what the hell? Get moving!"

She shook her head sharply, tapping the pole as she began detaching it from the backpack, and slipping her gun off to let it slide to the ground.

The glider's whine sounded behind him. It'd started its run.

"Now, Sergeant! It's coming this way!"

She brought up her hands, gritting her teeth. "I... take care of it! Can't remember word! Igla!" She leaned over her pack again, unwrapping the handful of poles.

Staff blasts began hitting the sand - he'd judge it as back around the gate's position now. And screams. People.

Jack growled, marching the rest of the way up to her and putting his MP-5 aside. If he had to copy Loveless and pick her up by the scruff he would. "I don't care about your needles! You're not staying here to-!" He paused as he got a view of the 'poles' she was unwrapping. "... Oh. Igla."

He really needed to remember the 'actual' names of Russian weapons better - the one-and-a-half-meter-long tube, and the equally long square-finned missile lying next to it, he immediately recognized as the weapon that got the NATO reporting name of SA-18 'Grouse'. Russian infantry-carried anti-air missile, equivalent of the Stinger.

He ducked aside, taking cover next to her as the girl calmly stood, hefting the tube.

The glider continued bearing down on them, firing at the Nasyans running to the gate, screams echoing across the lake. It was going low. It'd realized in the first run that they didn't have jack that could hurt it, so it was going low and slow so it could shoot the fleeing villagers easier.

Volkova snapped the pistol grip and shoulder stock into place.

The glider's staff-blasts continued to march across the beach towards them, leaving spots of glass in the sand.

Flipped the sight up and the safety off.

The staff-blasts slammed into the ground a meter in front of Volkova's feet, and she turned to offer the glider a profile view as the next pair passed to either side of her, by expression evidently feeling the heat. She'd found the notch between the glider's widely-spaced staff cannons, but if it turned one degree left or right she was dead.

Up over her back - the Grouse wasn't really built to be fired from profile, but she'd be wide enough to get hit if she turned to face the target - almost one-handed, barely glancing into the sight...

And this was how Jack was introduced to one of the few things he had not yet seen in his thirty years of military service: A nineteen-year-old girl pulling an Old West, High Noon, spurs-chaps-and-revolvers, cowboy-style quickdraw shootout against an alien space fighter.

And winning.

There was really no missing at this range, and the missile flashed across the distance (all of ten or twenty meters) to tap into the Death Glider's nose, erupting in fire and blast-fragmentation as half a kilogram of HMX made its opinion of the pilot's god known. The cockpit shattered, and the glider soared overhead, veering slightly to the left - pilot must've tried to pull away, but it was just going to crash in the lake now.

On the other hand, the Igla had _not_ been designed to be fired that close to its target. The blast wave caught Volkova, hurling her and a wave of sand down the beach to land and bounce like a rag doll on the beach.

Jack came back up, jogging up to her position...

His spirits rose when he heard her groan, splaying her limbs out and slumping back for a moment. She held up a finger - index, not middle. "Either... never..." She heaved in a deeper breath, spitting out sand. "Either never doing that again... or doing again as soon as possible." She let her hand fall to the ground again.

Jack grinned, shaking his head as he moved past a bit, grabbing her red beret from where it had fallen to the ground. Okay, maybe Arina Volkova could handle this job after all. "Ready to move, soldier?" He offered her the beret.

Volkova groaned, levering herself up to a sitting position, and waving off the beret. "Was just reminding self what air like." She used the Igla's launch tube - she'd still kept a perfect grip on it when sent flying - as a crutch to bring herself to a standing position again, and began moving back towards her pack, and the other missile.

Jack slipped the beret into his pocket and moved after her. It was then that something occurred to him. "... Wait, did you just bring a missile launcher through the gate? On a _milk run_?"

Volkova nodded, brushing red hair out of her eyes as she ducked down next to her pack. "Yes sir."

"... I need to check your pack."

She blinked, looking back at him. "But you say be prepared for anything, sir. Reiterate four times in training." She'd counted? Even he hadn't.

"I didn't mean-!" The whining roar of the other Death Glider as it realized what had happened to its partner and tore upward and away from the village made him glance in that direction. "... Point taken."

This was just going to encourage her, wasn't it?

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Jolinar of Malkshur struggled. It would be difficult to explain the chemical secretions she was making and nervous control she made over her host to a human observer - as difficult as a human would find it to explain every muscular twitch and tiny body movement involved in running, the small muscles twitching to maintain balance, lungs heaving for breath... And she knew the principles behind her actions as well as that hypothetical human did - which was to say, not at all. The actions themselves were instinct, but _why_ it worked she'd be at a loss to answer.

In essence... she struggled to save her host. The man had taken a direct hit from a Death Glider's staff cannon. She did not truly think he could be saved, even by her abilities, but she had to try. And not just because she was in him.

Nothing in her life had made her feel less Tok'Ra than this last hunt. She'd had to abandon her host, Rosha. At Rosha's request, but she had been unable to think of a solution by which they could both live. She'd taken over this man's life for two months... telling the people around him everything he would say, if he had not been trying to scream 'There's a snake inside me controlling everything I do'. And now Cronus's forces had followed her. Dozens of Nasyans were dead now, simply because she had been here.

Saving this man wouldn't make it all right. But it might at least make her feel better. Yes. _Her_. She didn't have a sex, really, or anything a human would understand as a gender identity, but she didn't want to give up Rosha yet. She was already uncomfortable with just how far she was apparently willing to go to live.

There was a thumping next to where her host's body lay - his eyes fluttered open, not under her control when all her effort went into saving his life.

It was Lamia. The mysterious woman her host and his wife Talia had taken in a month before she arrived on this world. Her face offered little expression, but the woman leaned over her host, a slim finger resting against the carotid artery in the neck. No heartbeat - Jolinar couldn't get it working again, couldn't get him breathing... eight more minutes and his brain would begin to die. Lamia tilted Jolinar's host's head back and rested the side of her own head over his mouth for a few seconds - feeling for breathing?

Plugging the nose, and pressing soft lips to her host's, breathing out and into his body. Up, taking another breath, and down again to deliver it. Slender hands knotted together and pressing against her host's breastbone. And then she began slamming down, compressing the ribs under her. Jolinar felt the pain somewhat distantly, likely because the nerves in her host's chest had been burned off. Thirty times. Then lean over again to feel for air...

Lamia began again. This was helping - the timer before her host's brain death set in was frozen. It was not enough, in the slightest, Jolinar realized in a moment of clarity. If true medical professionals with proper equipment - Tok'Ra ideally, though perhaps the Tau'ri would manage it - were on this world for Lamia to preserve her for, her host might survive this.

If they weren't the subject of an invasion. If there were any chance of nine Tau'ri soldiers stopping a full-force ha'tak. If her host stood any chance of surviving being moved.

Her host's eyes flicked to the side, and his lips curled slightly in a smile of his own, just before Lamia's face obscured his view to deliver another breath. Jolinar caught his thoughts - he wasn't a violent man, but even he could take joy in the sight of the machine that had killed him floating, burning and shattered, on the lake.

It wasn't going to be enough. As Lamia moved away to begin compressing his chest again, both Jolinar and her host could see it - dozens of Death Gliders in the distance, descending rapidly towards their position.

_... Get out of here._ Her host's thoughts floated to the fore.

Her coils constricted - a goa'uld gesture of surprise, analogous to a human gasp. _But I-_

_Any chance of me living means many people will have to stay here. Talia will die. Lamia will die. The Tau'ri will die._ He must have caught her evaluation of the situation... it wasn't really possible for goa'uld to lie to their hosts, or the inverse. A shared consciousness made that a ludicrous thought.

_... Then you want us to die instead. I understand._ It was his choice. He deserved at least one last decision of his own, after all she'd done to him and his. She paused, preparing to relax her efforts to save him.

_Me._

_Wh... what?_

_You don't need to die. You're uninjured._ His thoughts paused, roiling and ordering themselves. _Don't misunderstand, Jolinar. I don't forgive you. Whenever you follow me to whatever is after this life, we will have __**words**__. But there's no need for two to die when only one must._

Jolinar closed her eyes - her actual body's eyes. She had no words.

When Lamia next came down to deliver breaths into his lungs, the host's hands wrapped up, holding her head down. She didn't resist, too surprised - a good thing, as the woman was spectacularly strong and even with Jolinar's strength enhancements, it wasn't a sure thing that the man could hold her. _Last chance, Jolinar! Go!_

_... I'm sorry, Quinta._ Sorrier still that she couldn't even tell if she was doing this because she wanted to fulfill his last request, or simply because she again wanted to _live_. She uncoiled from his spinal column, darting out into his mouth through the back of his throat, and then leaping through into Lamia's mouth, burrowing through the tissue at the back of the woman's throat...

... It was... strangely hard to get through, but she was in. She could feel Quinta's grip failing and Lamia pulling free as she coiled around the spine.

What was wrong with this woman? There was far too much metal in here. Jolinar's extended tendrils sought, and eventually found, the appropriate nerves, but they were _cables_, seemingly made of... not glass, but a related material, some form of silica fiber. She was hooked in... she thought... but...

Lamia's eyes glowed as the link established - just a base-level link, Jolinar didn't want to do a full melding with an unwilling host. Jolinar began sifting through the woman's mind as fast as she could, and would have frowned if she'd had lips - she couldn't seem to access memory, only surface thoughts, and the surface thoughts were confused, disorderly. Not a surprise, since Lamia had little to no idea what a goa'uld even _was_...

"Loveless!" The body jolted as a hand clapped on Lamia's shoulder. Jolinar turned the head, to see the Tau'ri commander... name was... Colonel O'Neill, right? "Time to go!"

The boots and mottled green pants of the red-haired girl under his command were visible next to him, and when she looked up, she could see that girl looking up at the sky, some kind of long tube over her shoulder and aimed in the general direction of the gliders. 9K38 Igla, anti-aircraft missile, entered Soviet Union service in 1983 CE - her host's surface thoughts identified it for her. ... Why did her host know Tau'ri weapons?

The gliders seemed to fear it - they were making very rapid passes, unable to really shoot human-sized targets with any success at that speed, but less likely to be hit themselves. Sometimes the girl would twitch the missile launcher in the direction of a glider that seemed to be getting too aggressive, and if they noticed, they snapped away instantly. She only had one shot left, there were no spare missiles visible, but none of the jaf'fa wanted to be the one to die to it.

A Tok'Ra saying encapsulated the strategy - 'A used bomb destroys one target. A waiting bomb intimidates a dozen.'

Colonel O'Neill frowned, flicking his fingers in front of her host's eyes. "You there, Loveless?"

Jolinar shook the host's head, wiping the blood - from penetrating the back of the throat - from her mouth with the back of her hand. The wound was rapidly being healed by Jolinar's chemical secretions - even more rapidly than usual, in fact - but the blood from the initial wound would hardly roll back into the vein. "I... yes."

Colonel O'Neill nodded sharply. "Good, now let's get him out of here." He reached for Quinta's lifeless body.

Jolinar brought up Lamia's hand to hold his back. "He's dead... seizure, bit his own tongue." She needed an explanation for the blood on her mouth... and he _was_ dead. She knew his condition intimately... without her there, death would be instantaneous.

Colonel O'Neill nodded, and began to stand up.

But then there was a sudden swell of rage from her host, and Jolinar felt her host's lips move - she had no control. "But we will shall take his body, his wedded spouse deserves the right to bury him." What was going _on_? Tok'Ra allowed their hosts independence as a matter of _philosophy_, they couldn't take action against the Tok'Ra's will!

A burst of anger transferred through her host's surface thoughts. She would bring all this down on them, take over the man's life, and then deny him even a decent burial? Judged by her host, _feeling_ the hatred of her actions, Jolinar's heart clenched with shame and guilt. She felt her host's arms slip under her predecessor, hefting him up with an ease that terrified Jolinar - she was not enhancing Lamia at _all_, and yet the woman was stronger than Rosha or Quinta had ever been.

Lamia stood next to Colonel O'Neill, and immediately began running, the Tau'ri soldier following shortly. Both looking over their shoulders rapidly to track where the gliders were and where _they_ should be.

The younger Tau'ri soldier, the redhead, jogged backwards, keeping up with them despite the heavy pack on her back and not actually going _forward_, and shifted the Igla on her shoulder before tapping the trigger. A missile leapt off the launcher in a streak of flame from the rocket motor, darting across a kilometer in barely over a second, shattering a Death Glider upon contact and raining shards of its hull down over the Nasyan forest. The girl smiled slightly - the smile reminding Jolinar that nearly every other species in the galaxy bared their teeth as a threat of violence, not an expression of joy. The expression and a look at her face seemed to stir a faint, vague sense of familiarity in her host - no recognition, merely the realization that there was something to recognize. "Work tracking which vulture which pay off. Was one hitting Nasyan village in first pair. No butchers get away alive."

_This_ strategy was encapsulated by a Tau'ri saying that Lamia's surface mind supplied: 'I'm not going back to base with unexpended ordnance.'

They continued their run to the gate, the redhead still moving backwards and keeping the - empty - missile tube pointed up at the gliders.

Colonel O'Neill glanced at the girl. "Volkova, trying to hate them to death over there? Run, you're out of ammo."

"Hoping they not realize that."

The Colonel's head twitched to the side slightly. "Ah, screwit, you're keeping up with my old knees anyway." Even when going backwards.

Well, Jolinar seemed to have no control over what her host was doing, but she didn't have a real _complaint_ about it at this point, so she poured some extra strength into Lamia's legs, helping the woman accelerate down the beach, towards the rippling blue surface of the chappa'ai, where it was guarded by the famed shol'va Teal'c and the blonde scientist Samantha Carter, staff weapon and Tau'ri projectile weapon raised and shooting past O'Neill and the redhead - Volkova.

And in, to safety, with Quinta's body hefted over her shoulder.

Her eyes had a surprising lack of need to adjust between the bright-lit open sky of Nasya, and the closed and claustrophobic underground facility, walls of metal and rock - concrete, her host corrected. It was chock-full, a completely unknowable number of Nasyans had come from the planet and while only the most recent to arrive and most wounded were still in here, that was still quite a lot of people.

Jolinar had to admire the skill of the Tau'ri, this looked like complete chaos to her, yet the green-clad soldiers navigated it with ease, every man and woman seemingly knowing exactly what to do and helping the Nasyans to slip into the complex order they had wrought, orders and shouts echoing across the room and over the intercom.

Lamia used the enhanced strength to pull herself to a halt before slamming into Daniel Jackson's back, where he was being quizzed by a man who had never been to Nasya - Lamia identified the man as 'Colonel Makepeace' after a short glance at his clothing, too quick for Jolinar to actually catch what Lamia had.

"We've still got missing, O'Neill and the rest?"

Daniel Jackson pointed back at the gate with his thumb, still devoting a good portion of his energies to helping Talia walk... the Nasyan woman was wailing, having seen her husband hit by the gliders and forced to leave him... "Right behind me! And dozens of jaf'fa right behind _them_!" Truly? They must have landed after Quinta was hit and Jolinar distracted... She hadn't really looked back enough to spot them. Or in control of the body, for that matter.

All eyes in the room turned to the gate, waiting.

And the gate rippled. Samantha Carter came through first, stepping quickly down the ramp to clear the way. And then, together, the remaining three came through. The graying-haired Colonel in the center, staff-bearing jaf'fa at his left, and Igla-carrying redhead at his right.

Nobody cheered, the mood wasn't _that_ buoyant, but the return of the last three certainly raised the spirits of the Tau'ri. It seemed to confuse Lamia slightly, and in honesty Lamia's confusion confused Jolinar... Wasn't it natural to be glad to see one's comrades back?

Colonel Makepeace grinned. The three began to step away from the gate.

Then the gate rippled once more, and a silver-armoured jaf'fa stumbled into Colonel O'Neill's back.

All three reacted more or less simultaneously - the Colonel kicked backwards, and both the jaf'fa and the redhead spun their long weapons like quarterstaffs (Jolinar was fairly sure the missile launcher had not been developed to be a melee weapon), together shoving the jaf'fa back and forcing him to stumble back into the gate's event horizon.

Jolinar tried to wince, though Lamia's nonresponsiveness made that difficult. Chappa'ai were only one-way. He was most likely disintegrated, or possibly lost somewhere between space - they'd never quite figured out which.

Makepeace shook himself. "Lock the iris!"

Another jaf'fa came through, and Colonel O'Neill, the jaf'fa, and the redhead dove aside, letting something on the order of a half-dozen soldiers, including Samantha Carter and Daniel Jackson, raise Tau'ri projectile weapons and riddle the jaf'fa with bullets before he could even bring his staff to bear.

Then something _completely_ out of Jolinar's experience happened - from within the gate, or perhaps from under the facing of it, slim blades of metal slid out, locking together and covering the gate's surface.

Two 'thumps' against the gate in quick succession marked the demise of two more jaf'fa - there didn't seem room for them to reincorporate as anything more than dust. And then the blue light died, the wormhole closing.

The body began moving again, turning from the stargate. Jolinar tried to stop it, but... she could feel, she could heal and empower... but she couldn't exert control. _What_ was going on?

Lamia stepped up to the auburn-haired Nasyan woman at the back of the room - Talia, Quinta's wife - and cleared her throat. "... Talia. I... sorry." She lowered the previous host's body to the floor in front of his wife, and stepped back.

Talia swallowed thickly, and Jolinar could see the unshed tears in her eyes. She nodded slowly. "... Thank you, Lamia... Could you...?"

Lamia nodded, and moved away, leaving the woman to be alone. Lamia herself moved to the corner of the gate room, leaning back against the wall and slowly slumping to the floor, face buried in her knees.

_What... are you?_ Jolinar had to ask. She _knew_ she'd taken the host properly. Why didn't she have _control_? Did this have something to do with Lamia's strange internal structure?

_Be silent._ The answer floated through the shared surface mind. W-17. An artificial being created by Shadow Mirror (who?) to emulate human beings.

Lamia's green eyes flashed, where they were hidden by her knees, patterns scrolling across them, and a tattoo hidden under her clothing on her left shoulder flaring brilliant blue... Jolinar obviously saw neither of these, but was aware through Lamia's consciousness. Initiating her secret transmitter, installed somewhere within her body - transmitting identification, location, and confirmation codes.

The response was immediate. _This is W-16. What is your status?_

_Intact, but potentially compromised._ A sudden burst of information, far too rapid for Jolinar to comprehend, thoughts and images and numbers and... she didn't even know, almost overwhelmed in the data flow before it died down.

_... Mistress Lemon is in the system. I will pass your report to her position. Await further contact._

_Wait!_ Jolinar tried to shout to Lamia. _I am not an enemy to the people of this world! I am Tok'Ra!_ Her subconscious confirmed it to Lamia, and explained to the woman just what the Tok'Ra _were_.

But W-16 was the first to respond. _... It can use your transmitter?_

She could?

Lamia's response was a moment later. _... It seems so._ There was another data burst - too fast for Jolinar to really comprehend, but she thought it included what she had just tried to tell Lamia about the Tok'Ra. _Also, my linguistics module is damaged. My speech comes out highly abnormal._

W-16 paused. _... I will pass that on as well. Be aware, Mistress Lemon is not on the planet. It may take up to thirty minutes for the message simply to reach her. She will most likely contact you directly once a course of action has been decided upon._

_Understood._

_... Welcome back._ W-16's transmission cut out.

Jolinar would've sighed if she could. So... she'd got herself stuck in an artificial being that she couldn't control, who was able to see her thoughts as a host could and pass on whatever information she wished about the Tok'Ra.

She'd been worse off. _I truly am no enemy of the Tau'ri. I fight against the System Lords._

_You say so. Shadow Mirror command will decide what will be done with you. I have informed them of what I know - convincing me serves no purpose._

Jolinar would have frowned, again, if she could. Lamia seemed similar to many of the hosts the Tok'Ra preferred to take - cooperative, willing to go along with what was requested... but she was already cooperating with someone else.

On the other hand... Jolinar hadn't been much a fan of that practice to begin with. One did not achieve wise decisions by forcing their way without consulting with others. She preferred to cooperate with a host rather than overawe them - the way some of them did seemed... dangerously close to the goa'uld simply suppressing their hosts. There would be no point in defeating the goa'uld if they became them - though as this past little venture proved, no matter how highly she held the ideals, they could be... shelved, in the interests of pragmatism.

A sudden flash of insight, and Jolinar realized what she felt like at this time. A goa'uld... host. Used to control over the body, the ability to do as she wished... and then suddenly becoming a passenger, watching someone else from the inside. ... On a certain level, she realized this wasn't unjust, she'd done the exact same thing to Quinta. But she _liked_ life, she wanted to see Lantash again, and she wished to continue to battle the System Lords. She still hoped a true symbiosis could be reached... even if she was starting from the other direction.

_We will see._ Lamia, her transmission ended and eyes back to normal, looked up, to see the famed SG-1 beginning to decompress from the battle.

Colonel O'Neill, in particular, was digging through the redheaded Volkova's backpack where it lay on the floor. He pulled out an object with an absolutely incredulous look on his face - it looked like a large steel dish, almost. "Land mines, Volkova? You brought _land mines_?"

A MON-100 - a Soviet-built directional fragmentation mine, analogous to a much heavier version of the American M18A1 Claymore, itself derived from the World War II German trench mine and post-Korean Canadian 'Phoenix' mine using the Misznay-Schardin effect.

Jolinar twitched slightly at the datadump. Her host had a very rapid and technical way of looking at things...

The redhead blinked, looking up at him. "Would have planted to deter pursuit if had opportunity."

O'Neill just shook his head, laying the bowl down and peering in again. "A spare box of bullets?"

"May have encountered significant, long-term fighting. Brought nine millimeter Parabellum for your weapons as well. Regular round, not overpressure types my sidearm use. No want your MP-5s explode when fire."

"That's... appreciated," Samantha Carter mumbled, staring at the space on the floor where the pile was growing - presently a missile launcher, land mine, the ammunition box, a small bag of hand grenades, and a number of military rations and water bottles.

O'Neill pulled out a neatly folded, dull gray blanket. "... Okay, this one's not too crazy. We really don't plan to stay offworld all that long, though."

Volkova shrugged. "Never know."

The shol'va, Teal'c, looked at her with an upraised eyebrow. "And yet no bedding?"

"Rock not _that_ uncomfortable."

O'Neill pulled out a handful of spare batteries and placed them on the floor without comment, before reaching in again and pulling out a trio of short stakes, with fragmenting explosive sleeves around the top - POMZ-2M non-directional fragmentation mines. "_More_?"

"One unlikely to be sufficient if any needed."

O'Neill put the mines down and reached in again. "... Tourist map of the White House?"

Volkova smirked slightly. "That one _was_ joke."

"I just don't know what to say..."

Daniel Jackson smirked, peering in himself. "Believe me, Arina, that's a pretty rare achievement."

O'Neill rubbed his temples. "Okay, look, I understand the logic here, I honestly do. And a fair chunk of this isn't that crazy. But you've got too much ammo, too many land mines, and that Grouse and the missiles alone are like half your body weight, there's a reason the things're normally held by a two-man team. For a combat op, this's a great load. But we normally do explorer ops - days worth of hiking and hauling. And this one was a milk run, we didn't even... gah!" He shook his head. "Okay, yes, everything goes wrong around us on a pretty frequent basis, but you can't be prepared for _every_ eventuality, and light weight is important too."

Volkova cocked her head. "But if combat occurs, load is validated, and will rapidly grow lighter."

"And if it doesn't? You'll be hauling around near-on double your own weight for most of a day."

"Then it exercise, is it not?"

Jackson chuckled. "Y'know... that attitude right there is probably why she's in such good shape."

O'Neill shook his head. "... Fine, but you're bringing back every bit of ordnance you take offworld and don't fire."

Volkova stood to attention and saluted. "Yes sir."

Lamia and Jolinar continued to watch the people milling about. O'Neill had ordered a quarantine until the Nasyan survivors had been checked for infection, and the Tau'ri worked their way through the group.

It was while a shortish doctor with dark red hair was examining Lamia that the order came in. Much sooner than expected. Lamia and Jolinar 'read' it together.

_... You're really going to do it?_

_That is the order._

_... I don't see that I have much opportunity to stop you. You control the body. And... now that I think on it, it may not be a bad idea, they have things we don't and have done better than we have over millennia in the last four years..._ It was a bit embarrassing to continue using the name 'Against Ra' when they had not actually experienced much success against him, and the Tau'ri had already done it... and Jolinar had made her concerns known regarding the Tok'Ra's longer-ranged plans - or rather, the complete lack thereof. Weakening the System Lords would be no use if there was nothing to finish them off... perhaps the Tau'ri could do that. Jolinar's attempt at large-scale conflict in overthrowing Cronus certainly hadn't worked out. _Let's at least do this right._ She hadn't intended this course of events, but perhaps Lamia would make a good host after all. If nothing else, learning cooperation and symbiosis from the other side might help her keep out of the territory she'd drifted into.

_Very well._ They communed rapidly, conferring ideas and hammering out a basic plan.

Time to change everything.

The doctor finished up, nodding. "Okay, now..."

Lamia brought her hands up to the back of her head. Jolinar added the echoing symbiote voice and the glowing eyes... "I surrender."

The doctor's eyes widened. "... Colonel..." She slowly backed up, before Colonel O'Neill and his team arrived.

"What's going on here, Fraiser?"

"I surrender," Lamia and Jolinar repeated.

Suffice to say that O'Neill's hand snapped to a sidearm, Volkova's reached down to a... hand shovel... and Teal'c, Jackson, and Carter braced to attention - though they lacked sidearms.

"You're a gould?"

Lamia nodded, and relaxed control, allowing Jolinar to speak. "It is... likely that the assault on Nasya was an attempt on me - I have run from Cronus for some time now." They'd agreed to act as though she had always been in Lamia. There was... no need, and nothing gained, for telling Talia that her husband had not been himself for the past two months. And it covered for Lamia's arrival on that world... hiding her involvement in 'Shadow Mirror'. That group worried Jolinar to some extent, but the actions they requested she take thus far were not ones she disagreed with. And it wasn't as though she had the power to stop Lamia anyway, perhaps if she cooperated and learned more, she may convince the artificial woman - or be convinced herself. "Not all goa'uld are the same. There are a few, who oppose the System Lords and their ways." She looked at Teal'c. "You must have heard of the Tok'ra."

Teal'c shook his head, stepping closer. "Every goa'uld seeks power for his own reason, and would betray his own brother to acquire it. That one System Lord desired your death proves nothing."

"Not every goa'uld is an enemy to the people of this planet. The Tok'Ra are real. No matter what Apophis has told you."

Teal'c shook his head. "I have yet to meet one."

"You have now. I am Jolinar, of Malkshur." One advantage of being more aggressive and risk-taking than the average Tok'Ra: name recognition. Lamia added: "And Lamia Loveless."

Teal'c frowned slightly, turning to O'Neill. "... I have heard the name. There is a legend, among the jaf'fa, regarding the Tok'Ra... I cannot speak for its truth."

O'Neill frowned, and waved to his team. "All right, let's move her to a holding cell for now. Toker or gould, the spooks'll want to talk to her."

Teal'c and Samantha Carter nodded, moving to the front - O'Neill and Volkova remained behind her, and Daniel Jackson moved to her side. The group began moving rapidly down the hall - they didn't bother shackling her hands, knowing goa'uld strength would take all of a flick of the wrists to break out.

Jackson shook his head slowly. "... Why did you decide to surrender?"

"The strength of the Tau'ri is undeniable, but it is not enough. The skill of the Tok'Ra is substantial, but it is not enough. With alliance, it may become sufficient. Do not the Tau'ri have a saying? 'Hang together, or hang separately'?" That one was from her host.

"You're talking about us allying ourselves with body-stealing parasites. Even if you don't play god over thousands of slaves-"

"The capability does not inherently create the inclination. Your body allows you to engage in cannibalism, but you do not. You require food, but you obtain it from outside your species. We require hosts, but obtain them by asking permission. The body is shared." Ideally speaking. She wasn't going to talk about what they'd do if desperate, or the 'borderline' attitudes common among the Tok'Ra.

"Quite a tall tale there," O'Neill noted. "You're gonna have to give us something more if you really expect us to even _entertain_ this idea, you know."

"I will provide information, within reason. I have three pieces I can offer immediately, on a good will basis."

O'Neill waved a hand. "Go on."

"One: The location of a recent - possibly current - Tok'Ra base facility, where you may go for negotiation." This one had been the hardest for her... but in the end, symbiosis and coexistence was about trust. The Tok'Ra had violated the trust first, she'd taken two hosts against their will, and not to _mention_ their failure against Apophis's attack. So they would have to trust the Tau'ri now - they'd spent their right to demand that trust.

"And how are we supposed to believe it's not a trap?"

Lamia let Jolinar shrug. "Send a small team, remain in constant contact. Two: An Ashrak pursued me to Nasya. He may have made it through the gate."

O'Neill glanced at Teal'c for explanation.

"'Hunter'. A goa'uld assassin. Here to kill you?"

Lamia shook her head. "We thinkish that. Not the slightest possible actual way to be sure."

O'Neill nodded, bringing up a radio. "Okay, add some kind of inner body scan to the Nasyan check - we're looking for a snake. And start a sweep of the base, look for _any_ possible sabotage or people hiding." He glanced at Jolinar and Lamia, shutting down the radio. "That includes any _you_ may have made, by the way."

Jolinar didn't even dare to think how badly this could've gone if she'd been _caught_ - surrendering at least gave her quite a few points to start with. "There are none."

"Sure, sure, we'll see. What's number three?"

Jolinar paused, looking at Daniel Jackson. "... The location of Sha're. Tok'Ra medical aid can remove Amaunet, but I personally lack the skills and equipment."

_That_ one got a response. It was a good thing she'd stumbled across that little tidbit while on the run.

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

George Hammond couldn't claim to like this. But... well. He'd been called to testify at a Senate hearing regarding possible impeachment for the President. He hadn't received orders to say anything other than the truth.

In fact, if he had received such orders, he would have testified about that as well. He followed _lawful_ orders.

Either way, there were a number of steps yet to go - through the House of Representatives, then the Senate, before anything happened. This wasn't directly related to the impeachment movement - it was more that the Senate wanted to know just what in God's name had happened. Though it was likely that what was said here would be repeated in the House.

At least it was a friendly face - the man running the proceedings was an old war buddy, Henry Hayes. Second-ranking member of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, but the chairman was ninety-six years old and possibly senile, having promised to step down as chairman a few months ago, so Henry got to ask the questions.

Henry flashed George a short, hidden smile, before speaking. "All right. We've heard most of what we need about the main running of the Stargate Program. We're going to move on to the period surrounding the alien attack this January... good lord, I really said that..."

A round of perfunctory chuckles.

"Okay." Henry picked up a number of papers, nodding to himself. "The basic chain of events here is: Senate Appropriations Committee withdrew funding from the Stargate Program. Senator Kinsey," he nodded to the man, "as chairman of Appropriations, was briefed on the program and situation in hopes that he would restore funding, but refused to. Gate activity was shut down, but the flagship team, SG-1, disobeyed orders and dialed a site they believed was the launching point of a goa'uld attack. History seems to have proven them correct, since they landed on one of the attacking ships - and mission log states that they blew up one with well-placed C-4, and were working on the second when our 'Guests' took it down, and were eventually returned when the Guests decided to buzz NORAD. The official defensive decision was to hide the fact that we detected the oncoming ships, pretend to be unaware of the threat, and sneak-attack them with experimental warheads - which failed. At this point our Guests leapt into the battle, SG-1 destroyed the first ship, and Apophis himself ran down to Earth. Apophis outpaced the Guests and launched a bombardment of Moscow, killing approximately one hundred thousand - I'd give exact numbers but the death toll still hasn't been properly counted. At this point, we know the rest - international outcry, President Nichol disclosed the gate and existence of aliens to the entire world, ourselves included, and due to international pressure and offers of substantial assistance, the administration decided to reopen gate operations and allow select foreign personnel into Stargate Command." He caught his breath, and lowered the papers, pulling down his glasses. "General Hammond, is that more or less accurate?"

George nodded. "It is, Senator." Titles here - they were closer than that, but the United States Senate was a place for decorum.

"Any part of the 'less' that you feel the need to set straight?"

George shook his head. "It's accurate."

"All right then. Let's move on to details and questions. I'll open up here. Our options for defence - at the time we became aware of the attack - were to muster our forces, and probably call the rest of the world to get some more, or to play possum and try to jump 'em with a superweapon surprise. Obviously we tried the latter and it didn't work. Could you offer some insight as to _why_ Colonel Samuels's plan was selected?"

George frowned, and shook his head. "I'm afraid not. I supported option A."

"I noted your protest logged. Mind if I ask why you _didn't_ like Samuels's plan?"

George frowned. "A number of reasons. The main thrust was, it disabled us from pursuing any other options - nobody was prepared, and after the 12Gs went off, electromagnetic interference made it impossible to prepare any other response. I didn't have absolute confidence it would work - the weapons were experimental and may not have even gone off, and we had essentially no intelligence regarding gould ships, they may have simply been tough enough to suck up the hits, and they may have had the capability to detect the missiles and evade or shoot them down. Or they may have coincidentally maneuvered outside the 12G's target path without ever even noticing them." George paused. "Let me be clear - Samuels's plan _was_ the preferable outcome. I just didn't know if it would work and didn't like the idea of not having a Plan B, but the lack of mobilization negated any chance of that. And the weapons _are_ good weapons and an excellent concept for a further series, they just weren't wonder weapons."

Joseph Reed - one of the Senators on the Armed Services Committee - leaned forward to speak. "What kind of 'Plan B' did we even have? We're not exactly built for battle against spacecraft."

"Plan B would've been ugly, Senator. But we do have anti-satellite weapons in our arsenal capable of hitting targets like that, as do the Russians, and a sufficient mass-assault may have been able to achieve results. Failing that, Plan C would have been to evacuate as many people as we could to distributed zones where the gould motherships would have found it difficult to kill many at once, and hardened and hidden locations. It's basically infeasible for an orbital bombardment to glass the surface of a planet and get everyone, they would have been there for years trying to hit the place inch-by-inch. The existing world order would have collapsed, but a fair portion of the people would have survived."

"These worst-case plans seem to... suck. Why exactly did you protest Samuels's plan?"

"I didn't. I agreed that the 12Gs made the best Plan A we had at the time, despite their flaws. I protested _solely_ to the idea of not informing our forces or other nations and getting them to readiness. Sir... Plan B and Plan C were horrible options. But because we failed to ready our forces, when Plan A failed, we were left with Plan D - be bombarded to extinction or be enslaved by Apophis. It's solely through the actions of SG-1 and the Guests that that bad policy didn't destroy this planet in its entirety."

Kinsey spoke up. "You've been saying Plan A was the best option. Why don't you tell us, for the record, what was so good about it?"

George frowned slightly, wondering where the Senator was going with this. "The 12Gs were extremely powerful weapons, in theory, and unlike most of our arsenal, built to attack orbital targets."

"You didn't consider that throwing weapons of mass destruction in orbit was a flagrant violation of the United States treaty obligations?"

George paused, and took a deep breath, shaking his head. "No, Senator. I did consider it. However, my position is military - international relations are the purview of people far above me. And personally, I would say that a treaty violation is worth saving the lives of every man, woman, and child on this planet." Strange... George had _thought_ Kinsey had been supporting the plan.

Kinsey nodded, turning to the Senate at large. "The General makes a good point. We may have passed beyond the point where we can afford not to use weapons of mass destruction in orbit... but we _did_ still unilaterally violate the Outer Space Treaty." He turned back to George. "Why do you think the President signed off on the play-possum plan?"

George's eyes widened as he realized what Kinsey's sudden topic shift had done - he hadn't actually spoken on the same topic, but he'd implied, accurately, that the President had signed off on a treaty violation... He was aiming to get Nichol impeached and come out clean himself. He probably _had_ signed off on the plan himself, and now that it had screwed up he was abandoning it like a sinking ship. And there was no way Hammond could prove it.

George shook his head. "The President's decision-making is his to explain. I was not told the reasoning, and do not believe it prudent to suppose."

"To prevent disclosure? Didn't Colonel Samuels say 'the world will never know how close we came to Armageddon'? To try and avoid this whole affair? I'll warrant that the nation has come off looking quite badly from our solo use of the gate, and the assault on Moscow. It would be understandable that he didn't want that revealed."

"... It's possible. However, if that were the objective, a degree of secrecy still could have been maintained - in a pinch, claim that a nuclear exchange with Russia or China looks likely, and then if it turns out unnecessary, pass it off as another glitch at NORAD." Now that George followed it through... it _didn't_ make sense... had Nichol's advisors misrepresented the situation to him to put Samuels's plan at the top of the list? Kinsey himself?

Kinsey nodded. "Moving on to another topic. SG-1 does not appear to have taken any significant censure from their violation of orders. Their actions were in the best of intentions, yes, but they still grossly and directly violated orders, making use of top-secret military equipment..."

Henry cast him a look. "'Bust me on the ground', Bob. The United States made Colonel O'Neill a Colonel because it expected him to know when _not_ to follow orders. A soldier's duty to defend lives comes before his duty to obey orders - _if_ it can be proven that it was necessary and the right decision."

Senator Reed nodded. "I agree. I'd say that the fact that SG-1 found itself aboard one of the alien ships, and successfully blew it up, indicates that lives _were_ saved by their violation of orders." He leaned on his hand. "Now I'm wondering what would've happened if that mission had been run _under_ orders instead of against them. We could've put half the US Army onboard those ships, with a lot better than C-4..."

Henry nodded wistfully. "Let's go onto the next one - Bob? You were basically the one behind that shutdown order. Why?"

Kinsey shook his head. "Well, in hindsight it definitely looks the wrong decision, but I don't see the future. At the time, it looked like the SGC was running across the galaxy and antagonizing the gould without actually bringing anything back, except for an ever-increasing likelihood that they'd come to try wipe us out. And don't get me wrong on this Henry - they _were. _The only part I was wrong on was that the attack was already coming. I thought we still had time to back off before things went into an interstellar war we weren't equipped for."

"But SG-1 _did_ have intelligence indicating the attack was coming - and where it was from, for that matter."

"... With due respect, Henry, are you _serious_? That 'intelligence', by their own admission, came from Doctor Jackson wandering alone into an _alternate universe_. Even if it was true - and none of you tell me it doesn't sound absolutely insane - there was no way of knowing it was applicable to this universe."

Senator Reed frowned. "This makes me wonder... President Nichol was a strong supporter of the program. And he had the power to override Appropriations on it. Does anyone know why he didn't? If he considered the intelligence credible..."

George winced. He'd been hoping he wouldn't be asked this... because he was going to have to answer. The same thing he'd told Colonel O'Neill when asked. "He said it would be political suicide."

At this rate, the Tollan affair was going to come out too.

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Edrekh honestly sort of enjoyed this particular hunt. There weren't many who had forced him to go as far as burning himself to unrecognizeability and swallowing his hara'kesh so he would be evacuated with the injured - and suffice to say, forcing the thing from his stomach and out his throat was a very uncomfortable experience, Ashrak in general were trained in the technique but tried to avoid using it.

Of course, he was a bit strange even as Ashrak went.

But the hunt was approaching its end now. He'd finished healing the burns a short time ago, and knocked out a guard who was checking on him, swapping clothing so he wore the military clothing and the guard took his place in the burn wrapping.

That was another bit that made him strange for an Ashrak - or a goa'uld, for that matter. He tended not to kill. It wasn't that he was a nice person, of course - again, he was a goa'uld - it was simply more elegant that way. And a clean sweep, nothing dead but his target and nobody even aware he'd been there... oh, he didn't get those often, but the attempt was quite the experience.

At the moment, he was working his way through the Nasyans. He didn't actually know _which_ of them Jolinar was in, and while he'd confirmed that he'd felt her presence before calling in Cronus's jaf'fa, he didn't actually know her current position. And that itself had been annoying, he could have done a better job on his own, without slaughtering the populace, actually confirming Jolinar's demise... but Cronus had wanted to make an example of the Nasyans for sheltering a Tok'Ra, whether or not they'd known. Didn't really make sense - the goa'uld denied the very existence of the Tok'Ra, and then punished people for cooperating with them - but Edrekh obeyed his orders, in part because _he_ would be the next example if he didn't...

He ran the light of the hara'kesh over the sleeping auburn-haired woman, interfacing with her mind... hit. It had taken perhaps fifteen Nasyans scanned before he'd found a hint. Her husband had had an entry scar on the neck - which was itself unusual for a Tok'Ra, and indicated this host had been taken forcibly, because Jolinar had not gone in the mouth, denying herself the view of the host's emotions that Tok'Ra favoured. The man was dead - his body brought to her by a woman who had arrived on the planet most mysteriously, and been staying in their home.

Edrekh wondered... was it her? He could either stand and think about it, or he could simply go for her and find out. He stepped away from the woman - Talia - leaving her to her troubled dreams.

He _always_ chose the latter.

Now, he remembered the woman from the scan he'd given the guard he'd knocked out and replaced. Lamia Loveless, transferred to one of this facility's prison blocks. Which, if it was related to Jolinar, would have to bump his estimation of the Tau'ri quite significantly, it was quite a rapid detection and response, barely a few hours with absolutely nothing to go on...

That was another thing that made him the best Ashrak - he could see from the perspective of his opponents, imagine what they knew and how they'd react to it.

Edrekh strode through the facility, through the masses of Nasyans and Tau'ri soldiers. First target: the security room. He wanted to get out smoothly, and that meant he'd need to cut off footage of him executing Jolinar. Unfortunately, if there was any more than one person in the security room, he'd need to kill them - it took time to make people unconscious, time he could not afford with another one screaming for help or trying to kill him.

Where it went wrong was when he ran into an older, higher-ranking Tau'ri, with short, rapidly graying hair, just outside the security room.

One who apparently made a point of knowing his subordinates, as he frowned, laying a hand on Edrekh's shoulder as he passed. "Oy. Why're you wearing Quincy's uniform?"

Fortunately, Edrekh wore his hara'kesh, and was always ready to use its mindlink to hypnotize people who caught him - to be sure, he could attempt to play it off, but he had nowhere near the familiarity with this place or its procedures to succeed. He whirled around, hara'kesh already glowing, bringing it up towards the man's face - O'Neill, the name tag said...

Then O'Neill caught Edrekh's arm, dragging it down and away from himself. "Snake!" he yelled.

Damnation. This would turn into a fight in the corridor and completely blow his cover if he took much longer - already, the staff in the security room could likely hear them.

Edrekh brought his spare hand around to catch O'Neill's right, and ducked in, slamming his head into the man's.

In the end, personal combat did not come down to 'skill levels'. It came down to proper body movement to generate force and momentum, and apply it to the enemy's body without losing it. Once you had it, you had it.

O'Neill's knee came up between Edrekh's legs - or rather, tried to, but Edrekh was able to block it by raising his own leg. The blow hurt quite a bit, but not as much as it could have.

O'Neill had it - against most goa'uld, the Tau'ri would win. But Edrekh had it, and superhuman strength and endurance as well.

He spun, leg scything out below O'Neill to pull him down to the ground. Failed, O'Neill managed to stay up long enough to step over the leg, planting his weight on another foot. Still, as long as Edrekh held onto O'Neill, strength would tell.

Which was why Edrekh was surprised when O'Neill spat into his face. More than a simple gesture of defiance, the saliva _obscured his vision_ - O'Neill managed to use Edrekh's moment of disorientation to release his grip on Edrekh's right hand, diving lower.

Edrekh shook his head sharply, clearing his eyes as best he could, and brought up his hara'kesh, glowing once more. It was limited in capability compared to the kara'kesh goa'uld tended to use... but it was small enough to actually have it on this mission.

Then O'Neill's hand reached the holster on Edrekh's right hip, dancing over the Tau'ri sidearm, and darting in to pull the trigger.

The weapon was loud, propelling a high-velocity metallic slug straight into his host's foot. Edrekh considered screaming, but decided to snap his arm down on O'Neill's head instead.

Or, attempt to - O'Neill suddenly stood, angling his arm and shoulder, and Edrekh's knife-hand skidded over O'Neill's right arm - Edrekh had to let go and move his own arm to prevent the blow from hitting himself.

O'Neill brought up his hands, holding Edrekh's right arm against his body, and shoved, spinning, to press the Ashrak back against the corridor wall.

Edrekh brought his own knee up - not between O'Neill's legs, but into the vulnerable kidneys on the side of his torso. He was already working to heal his host, and while the hole in his foot would take some time to vanish, it was at least not paining him enough to make him freeze.

The pain was visible on O'Neill's face, and he reflexively let go of Edrekh's arm.

Edrekh noted that his upper thigh was pointing roughly in O'Neill's direction, and brought his right arm down to the holster. He'd just got shot with this weapon, time to make it work for him.

O'Neill seemed to ignore this, arcing an arm around and into Edrekh's temple, even as he stepped forward to hook around Edrekh's left leg - the intent to push Edrekh aside and to the floor was plain, and the head blow would hurt as well.

The reason _why_ O'Neill had ignored it became apparent when the weapon failed to fire - the holster must have jammed its regular operating cycle.

O'Neill pushed, and Edrekh fell to the floor - caught himself on his hands, and kicked O'Neill in the stomach as he bounced back up.

This had taken too long. Edrekh was already facing away from O'Neill, so he simply ran, and darted around the first corner - just in time, as three barks of O'Neill's own sidearm came, and sparks came off the wall just past his previous position. He wasn't here to brawl with O'Neill, he was here to kill Jolinar. A pity, though.

Edrekh was not of a species that smiled, but he would have - he felt it. The Tau'ri had _truly_ formidable warriors - a man who could go head-to-head with an Ashrak and make the outcome questionable. And even the lesser ones he'd seen were far, far superiour to jaf'fa. His work was going to get a great deal more fun.

It wasn't long before the security alerts began echoing through the facility. While there was no description of him, it was a fair estimate to the people he passed that the running man with a bleeding hole in his boot might have something to do with it - which was why the first thing he did was intercept a lone security guard, frazzle his mind with the hara'kesh, and exchange boots, holsters, and sidearms, before continuing through the facility at a calm, measured pace.

Not running meant O'Neill might catch up. Running meant anyone he passed in the somewhat crowded facility would know he was up to no good.

His previous plan was scrap, but he could still accomplish the mission - and that came first, if he went back home without doing it, Cronus or Selket would have him hunted down, flayed, and fed alive to his own host. Then resurrected to do it again and try the _really_ creative stuff.

Besides, improvising a conclusion to this mission whereby he succeeded and got out intact was going to be _fun_.

His rapid but calm movement through the facility quickly paid off - he was at the holding cells. It was a small base, and he'd hijacked a map from Airman Quincy's mind.

He opened the door, hara'kesh in one hand and his new sidearm in the other, snapping both out into the faces of the surprised guards.

Even as their mouths opened to issue challenge, the sidearm boomed, and the hara'kesh glowed. Both guards fell, one very much dead, one only a fair amount of the way there.

Edrekh stepped the rest of the way in, closing the door behind him. A goa'uld door he could scramble, but this simple mechanism was much more difficult to jam. He'd simply have to be quick.

There, across the room, behind bars - he felt the symbiote. The host was new, but suited Jolinar's tastes - blonde (if a greenish blonde), beautiful, female.

He shook his head, peering at the sidearm he'd just used. "Interesting weapons, these..." He put it back in its holster - he'd want a few of these for the future. Absolute joy to use, less visually impressive than goa'uld weaponry, but far better at dealing damage to the internal organs - and a simple, intuitive design that meant he could fire them, accurately, within hours of first touching one. Genius.

He stepped up to the bars, and laid a hand on the door, snapping it aside - his strength immediately broke the lock. He stepped in, and began the message he had been ordered to deliver. "Kree'shak, Jolinar. By decree of the Goa'uld System Lords, you will die with dishonor, by the power of the hara'kesh." He brought his up - a simple, slim ring resting on the inside of his middle finger - and waited. Where possible, he gave his victims their final words - it was, after all, simply polite.

Jolinar's face remained blank, but she folded her host's arms across her - admittedly impressive - chest. "Hear this. The days of the System Lords are numbered. Tell them that I die with hope. My death merely feeds the hearts of the Tok'Ra."

Spirited. Edrekh lit up the hara'kesh. The glow played across Jolinar's face, exposing... normally it made bone visible, but something looked strange... she refused to scream.

And then things went wrong again - Jolinar _moved_. He was directly affecting her and her host's nervous system, and placing them in incredible pain besides. Even if she could muster up the will, there should have been no way for her mind's commands to _reach_ her limbs...

Just the same, her hand came up, grasping his hara'kesh hand by the wrist and bending it around behind him as she moved. Edrekh lost precious time to his shock, and by that time, Jolinar was behind him, right arm pinning his behind his back, left hand on his head, and pushing him forward with utterly _impossible_ strength.

He staggered, pulling back slightly from the starry web his head had made in the concrete of the wall... and was then shoved forward again. His nose broke, gushing blood down the front of his face.

When Jolinar's arm slacked back again, he refrained from trying to back away - that would just give her more space to build up momentum. He tried moving to the side, but the head injuries he'd already sustained made him too slow...

Her palm crashed into the back of his head, driving a dent into the concrete shaped to fit his face.

Jolinar spoke. "... You could have told me you could do that. That death speech embarrasses me now."

The same mouth responded. "Ask you did not."

"... We are going to _have_ to work on this."

Edrekh used the pause to twist his hara'kesh where it was behind him... roughly towards the voices. Neural effect worked better at short range to the head, but the heat-blast worked fine.

Except that it didn't even stagger Jolinar's host.

Her hand arced around, crashing into his temple with incredible strength...

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Vindel Mauser looked out the 'window' of his office - not actually a window, of course, simply a high-quality screen, since the office itself was buried in several layers of armour.

It looked like a warzone out there - the two-hundred-kilometer 'dog bone' shape of the 216 Kleopatra asteroid, as well as its two smaller 'moons', was slowly being gnawed away by a hail of crimson particle accelerator beams, both from Shangri-La where he stood, and Sierra de la Plata, brought back into the near-area system and stationed nearby. Barely even visible nibbles - their weapons were powerful, but they weren't constantly firing, and the thing was incredibly large, possessing, approximately, the volume of Shadow Mirror's entire fleet, before losing eighteen vessels, four hundred thousand times over.

It wasn't _actually_ a war zone, of course. They were simply carving off chunks to be mined - right now, they needed metals to build Outer Heaven, and 216 Kleopatra was one of the asteroid belt's rarer M-type asteroids. 16 Psyche was even larger and richer, but Kleopatra was loosely-packed, much easier to mine.

Lemon, in Wonderland, was a fair amount closer to Earth, cutting up Halley's Comet for water supplies - in particular, hydrogen-1 for the particle accelerators they were still firing, and hydrogen-2, deuterium, to top up the reactors. And storing the oxygen from that - they'd need a rather large amount to fill Outer Heaven when it was sealed. A fair amount of regular water too, though - they had plenty of drinking water, but they could always use more.

Of course, they'd calculated where they were cutting away, to control the orbit and ensure the thing didn't wobble and crash into Earth on its next run to the inner solar system in 2061 - though to be honest, it may not _exist_ anymore by 2061, depending on how much water they required and where they got it from. Still, nothing lost by planning long-term.

These 'Tok'Ra' may just get interesting. At the very least, Shadow Mirror required offworld intelligence, and if they linked up with Earth... well, they didn't have the military force to be a severe threat, and by seeing how the Tok'Ra treated Earth, with a view from inside the Tok'Ra, they'd have a better idea just what they were looking at out there. And Earth now had a goa'uld prisoner - meaning that if that 'genetic memory' thing panned out, and the interrogations worked, Shadow Mirror could trade with Earth for goa'uld technology information from the maker's perspective. Or in a pinch, steal it.

Overall, things had finally started going well - the gate was ready and awaiting infrastructure before they ran heavy offworld operations (he didn't want to run to other worlds without an iris to shut out anything unwanted), the amount of people he'd successfully brought to this world had tripled, several of his key experts were in place and getting to work, Outer Heaven's construction was under way, and now he was getting lucky breaks like knowledge of these 'Tok'Ra'. Now as long as Earth didn't go the way of the Federation again and nothing _new_ horrible happened...

He looked up at Marita, where she stood at military ease in front of his desk. "At least we know what these 'goa'uld' actually _are_, now."

"Yes sir. Doctor Scaglietti is examining the ones we've captured - he wanted to borrow a few W-Series to practice something with the mature ones."

"I'm not sure I want to know, but go ahead and explain it to me."

"He wanted to see if he could safely extract the parasites, as a precaution in case something happens to our offworld explorer teams. Other workable options are isolating their strength enhancement and healing capabilities for use without the rest of the parasite, or interrogating the goa'uld to see what we can find out."

Vindel hummed. "Give him his dolls, but tell him that goa'uld related research is secondary - his first priority is Project Hyperion. We don't have Helios, but we do have some hair, skin, and blood samples now that Sierra de la Plata is here. I want System XN working."

Marita nodded. "Understood, sir."

"Sir!" Alexander Walther yelled as he burst into the office. Looked quite frazzled, as if he'd been running the whole way, and grease-smeared.

"I sometimes regret an open-door policy... Yes, Walther?"

The petite engineer leaned over, heaving for breath. "I... found... the engines."

"The goa'uld ship's engines? Judging by your excitement, they're something spectacular?"

Walther, having caught his breath, shook his head. "On their own, useless. The thrust they generate is positively anemic compared to standard reaction drives, let alone our fusion rockets."

Vindel raised an eyebrow. "Pride in your old work? They seemed fairly agile."

"Not just pride, sir. It's similar to the Gravicon on the Huckebein's Mark II prototype, and the bullshit the Inspectors kept pulling on us. It's a reactionless, inertia-reducing drive, operates by generating and manipulating... what I'd call 'pseudo-gravity'... in basic, sir, it's got incredibly poor thrust because there are so many more parts for efficiency to creep out and it's trying to get around physics instead of working with it, but because it reduces the overall mass, it has spectacularly high thrust/weight and acceleration. Side benefit is that it also regulates internal inertial forces - we're talking artificial gravity, and more importantly, it can negate, or at least reduce, the effect of g-forces on a pilot."

Marita stared at him. "... That's..."

"Useless on its own. But coupled with a high-thrust fusion rocket... we're talking gamebreaking, sir."

Vindel leaned forward. "How gamebreaking, Walther?"

"Hard to tell for sure what we can do with it, sir. But for a theory example... a drive unit about one fifth the internal volume of that ship cuts down the mass to half and then exerts force roughly equal to one gee. We've got more than enough internal space for a unit in that size range on Shangri-La, and if we can _just_ duplicate the half-mass effect - then Shangri-La can go dogfighting with Gespensts. The Gespensts and Lions... we're talking dreamland mobility here, sir, and inertial compensation to make use of it without risk to the pilot."

Vindel tapped his cheek. "Similar to the Gravicon... could it be used to generate a G-Territory?"

"In principle, yes, if it can generate pseudogravity one way, it can also generate it to direct attacks away. I'd have to dive into the guts before I could say whether I could _actually_ do it."

"Check into it. That's your new priority - you can focus on getting new toys through the gate once you've made proper use of the ones we already have. An unanalyzed technology is nothing but a trinket. And put your Lions on hold, the Ashsabers... get Lemon and O'Neill off the ATXK until you've analyzed these drives and determined to what degree they can be implemented, and continue work on System XN."

Walther nodded. "So... Gravicon, XN, ATXK and Lions, and then gate?"

"As a general order of-" Vindel's D-Con buzzed. He frowned, tapping the personal data unit and switching it to speaker. "You're on. What is it?"

Claire O'Neill's voice came through. "This is gate ops. Got a problem here, boss." Here she demonstrated that she actually _could_ be serious - it was a choice, not a disability, that led to her usual personality.

Because of course it couldn't _continue_ going well... "What do we have?"

"We were heading through to Nasya to retrieve W-17's Angelg - she hid it and went on foot into the village, and since she had to withdraw under fire, we thought we'd get it back, disassemble it and ship it through the gate."

"Mm? Couldn't find it? Just call W-17 and have her relay the position."

"Nah, we found it, boss. Or... well, we found where it was."

"... You had best not mean what I think you mean."

"Damage to the trees and divots in the ground consistent with a machine of Angelg's size and mass lying there for months. No mech. The goa'uld left the planet after they hit the Nasyans, boss, and..."

Fuck.

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Author's Notes:

First of all, as always, thanks go out to prereaders (Sunshine Temple, Belgarion213, Ellf, DCG). And al103 for Russian help!

Since one of my prereaders brought it up: Earth isn't half the sentient life in the entire universe - only in the known-to-the-Asgard universe. Thor doesn't actually know about the Aschen, Oriville, or Pegasus. But since the Milky Way has mostly come from seed populations from when the total world population was 5-10 million and been massacred when they develop technology allowing for higher populations... and Ida's been getting blasted down to bedrock by a robot war...

I suppose I should answer GenoBeast's question (my first review for this one on FFNet, feels like I should hold a party or something...). The crossover is an anime/game series called Super Robot Wars. You don't really need to know Super Robot Wars to 'get' the fic, I'm writing it from the Stargate perspective and am revealing the relevant SRW details at a measured, digestible pace. Assume that if I haven't revealed something yet, it's not really key for you to know (though it may cast earlier scenes into a different light, or help you understand what people are talking about in the 'hinting' bits), and will mostly serve as an in-joke or an a-hah for people who do know SRW.

The commentary on bin Laden might seem to be out of place for y'all in our modern context, but remember, fic-time is 1998. Bin Laden hasn't actually _done_ anything yet, Al Qaeda wasn't even really heard of outside the intelligence community (why O'Neill knows) until late August. And yes, bin Laden would've gone on his looniebars quest without Apophis's attack and any mishandling of the Stargate, _we_ know that - he's just using it as an extra excuse. I considered using a No Celebrities Were Harmed version, but honestly, there wouldn't actually have been any _changes_ from the RL equivalent where there are of Nichol and Hayes. And I certainly don't care enough to try avoid defaming that fuckwit.

What O'Neill's _not_ saying is that he was involved in Operation Cyclone, and was one of the people involved in training Bin Laden's group-that-became-Al-Qaeda - the non-Afghani fighters in Afghanistan were _mostly_ not dealt with by the US (contrary to their own opinion, they were an amusing little sideshow to the real war, and in fact almost doomed the Afghan resistance after the Soviets left), but on occassion they proved so insistent on involving themselves that the CIA tried to send people out to make them competent and less likely to engage in psychotic excess in the war (mostly unsuccessful on both counts). I imagine the reason he's not saying it is obvious... but as he's said to Teal'c, in his time he's done some damn distasteful things.

Regarding capitalization of 'Asgard': You don't capitalize Human, do you? Do you talk about White and Black? Where race is at question, there is no capitalization - 'the Asgard', on the other hand, denotes the cultural and governmental group (ie, American). For instance, goa'uld, being a race name, doesn't get capitals, but Tok'Ra, being a cultural subset of goa'uld, does.

(Another note: Thor says Shangri-La is approximately twice the size of Beliskner, and that's accurate - but it's _not_ twice as long. More like 1.25-1.5 times as long, the 'twice the size' comes in terms of total volume and mass. The O'Neill class - which obviously doesn't have a name yet - will be about the same size.)

Also, for clarification, the 'stripy shirt thing' is a telnyashka/tel'nik - but the only people on SG-1 who know what the word is are O'Neill, Daniel... and, well, now Arina.

As always, reviews, comments, corrections, and etcetera are appreciated whether for good or ill, and my email's always open (PaleWLF gmail com).


	5. Chapter 04: Dark Prisoner

Disclaimer: No copyright is mine, thus no copyrighted character is. If you recognize them from something that's not written by 'Pale Wolf', I have no legal claim to them. If a list is requested, I'll dig it up.

The Shadow on the Other Side of the Mirror

By Pale Wolf

Chapter Four

Dark Prisoner

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Daniel Jackson wasn't quite sure whether he should be skipping for joy, or brooding angrily.

On the one hand, if what Jolinar had said was true, he _knew where Sha're was_. He could go and see her in a couple of months - once the one Abydonian year since he'd left was up, and the Abydonians excavated the Stargate to allow him travel. Once General Hammond got clearance to go and check up on one of Jolinar's leads to see if she was on the level, at least - Daniel didn't think it'd be too hard, though, since he was already cleared for the trip to Abydos, they'd just be going in a bit more cautiously and better-armed to make sure it wasn't a trap.

On the other hand, she was there in hiding because she was pregnant. With Apophis's child.

Because he didn't really _like_ being angry, thinking about what Apophis and his 'spouse' had done to Sha're, and it was months before he could do anything about it either way, he'd opted to split the difference and focus on work. Hopefully if he just let his subconscious swill on it for a while, it'd be easier to deal with... less raw. It was work or brooding, honestly, and he preferred the former.

Even when the work was interrogating the _other_ gould presently imprisoned in the SGC.

Daniel shook his head slightly, looking across the bars at the gould assassin. The man's host, at least, looked in his mid-late fourties - a rather nondescript appearance, average build, average height, black hair receding from the forehead, and a touch of gray at the temples... Perhaps as intended, Daniel would probably just ignore the man if there weren't an active at-work expression on his face. Though the bandaged, broken nose he was sporting after Jolinar had broke him spoiled the effect somewhat.

"You said your name was Edrekh?" Daniel opened up the dialogue, while unfurling the rolled-up sheet of paper the assassin had passed through the bars as he'd sat down in the chair they'd set up to keep the interrogation comfortable.

"That is correct." He sat, quite calmly, at the back of the cell.

Daniel glanced at the sheet of paper, frowning. It looked like blueprints, though he had no idea of what. "What is this?" So he asked.

"Schematics for the construction of a shield generator."

Daniel's eyes widened, and his jaw dropped a little bit. "Huh...?"

"Unfortunately, many elements of the design are too complex to be easily written down. The majority of goa'uld core technology is hand-crafted. I expect your workers will need to ask me for details I was unable to put down."

Daniel shook his head, putting the blueprints down and leaning forward. "No, wait... why are you being so cooperative?"

"There is something you must understand." Edrekh folded his hands together in front of him. "Goa'uld do not do 'loyalty' well. We are, as a product of the genetic memory of many goa'uld before us, self-interested in the extreme. There are cases where goa'uld find themselves caring about individuals outside themselves, for instance in the Tok'Ra there are fairly strong bonds. But in general, goa'uld have neither concern for, nor interest in, others."

Daniel pursed his lips. "So you're saying you're _all_ psychopaths?" Not that he hadn't suspected it himself, but it was different hearing it from the horse's mouth. He was having a conversation with a gould... he'd _certainly_ never expected that outcome...

"Possibly. I am unfamiliar with the term. Regardless, this is a majority issue only - there are those who deviate from this norm, in multiple different ways."

Daniel shook his head. "So... why are you being so cooperative, if you don't have interest in other beings?"

"Because I am not stupid."

Daniel imitated Teal'c in a raised eyebrow without further comment.

"My failure to kill Jolinar means that even if I returned to the System Lords, I would be tortured to death and brought back to do it again at least fourteen times. Imprisoned and without the element of surprise, it is essentially impossible to complete that mission. Even were I to escape and achieve some other objective beneficial to Cronus, he would not be forgiving - what he sent me to do was not done. The ideal outcome for me - that is, the outcome where I am not killed repeatedly until Cronus grows bored with it and allows it to stand - will be attained by siding with the Tau'ri, and doing what is possible to assure their victory."

Daniel stared.

"And, as a side note, providing the information you want freely ensures that you have little need to torture me. I have experienced it before, but prefer not to."

"Wait, wait, wait..." There were _so many_ things wrong with this... "You're defecting?"

"Essentially. Cronus dispatched me on behalf of the System Lords as a whole - any other goa'uld I could attempt to go over to would simply destroy me themselves. I am sure it will take time before it is accepted."

"You killed two people here! And are responsible for... ugh, are you _insane_?" This guy had triggered the destruction of Nasya...

Edrekh nodded. "I did. Your superiours will simply have to decide whether it is more important to punish me for past actions under orders that will not continue, or to benefit from what I have to offer."

"And what if they pick the former? What if _we_ torture you to death like you say the System Lords will?" They wouldn't, but _how_ had Edrekh known that? Why was he assuming it?

"Then I am caught between two unpleasant outcomes. But the only positive outcome for me lies through you - if you accept my offer." The Ashrak shrugged. "When I'm dead either way, there is nothing for me to lose by going with the unknown."

"... So why are you giving it freely? Or is there a cost to this shield generator?"

"No cost. To put it simply, I find it more effective to put my new allies in an accomodating mood, than to scalp them for every scrap of information I provide. I will freely provide what I have, and perhaps you will freely repay it. If not, the only ones who lose are the System Lords, who, as a goa'uld, I hold no loyalty to."

Daniel frowned. "So wait... doesn't that mean you hold no loyalty to us, either?"

Edrekh inclined his head. "That is correct. We do not have loyalty - but my self-interest lies with you."

"And if that changes?"

Edrekh shrugged once more. "I am a goa'uld. I pursue my self-interest. I have stated what will happen if my best interests lie in another direction. It would be pointless to provide false assurance - you Tau'ri will simply have to decide what to do with what lies before you."

... Well, at least he was honest. "You know... you're very different from the other gould I've met. Usually they just kind of do that booming voice thing and tell us to kneel before them."

Edrekh's eyebrow rose. "Would you?" The resonant 'symbiote voice', of course.

"Probably not."

"Then it would have been pointless to do so, and leave you Tau'ri more inclined to seek my death. Very unwise."

"Okay... look. I see your logic here... so now you've got me wondering why every _other_ gould I've met doesn't act the same." This just didn't add up right... Edrekh certainly wouldn't be the first defector in history, but _he was a gould_. This was completely out of Daniel's experience... though a _rebel_ gould had turned up just a bit earlier, and... maybe there were a lot more fractures in the society than they'd first thought.

"That is most likely due to the sarcophagus."

Daniel blinked. "... The healing device?"

Edrekh nodded. "The sarcophagus acts as a narcotic with excessive exposure - prompting feelings of invulnerability and euphoria. After significant overuse of the sarcophagus, a goa'uld - possibly other races, but few other races have access - will feel invincible. Far more powerful than they truly are. Euphoric. They will not take well to losing that feeling."

"... You're telling me the gould are _drug addicts_? That they're naturally psychopaths, but that they're megalomaniacs because they're _high_?" Ten thousand years of oppression across the galaxy because the gould were on a bad trip...?

"Essentially. The System Lords may or may not have been more benevolent overlords without the sarcophagus, but at the very least, they would have been smarter and more realistic about it."

"And you're... what? Immune to the effects? A conscientious objector?"

"Too low-ranking to have access on demand to a sarcophagus."

... Oh.

"It's likely that most of the goa'uld you have dealt with thus far are System Lords, but the majority work on actually keeping things functioning - Ashrak such as myself, and technicians and craftsmen for the technology the System Lords do not wish to entrust to slaves, for instance. Though we are still viewed as divine by the slaves - the System Lords do not wish to shatter their mystique."

Well... that made some sense, the entire race couldn't be ruling planets... "... Are you saying that these lower gould might want to defect like you do?"

"Possibly. If it is in their best interests. One overlord is much like another, and the majority of us are quite used to serving. For instance, while ruling over a world is a pleasant thought... do I actually have the skills to do so? I do better as an Ashrak, and if the one above me benefits, that advances my position quite nicely."

Daniel shook his head, slowly standing up. "I... I'm going to need to talk to my superiours about this."

"I will wait."

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

This was bullshit. But Arina Volkova wasn't really good enough with words to elaborate on _how_ - let alone actually convince these damned 'Taldor' otherwise.

Apparently, P3X-775 _was_ inhabited after all, despite the area around the Stargate being completely lifeless. Apparently, the inhabitants - or their government the Taldor at least - expected everyone around to be telepaths and know exactly what crime anyone around them may have committed, and every single one of the laws of a world they had never visited. And apparently they believed that helping a man who was running and begging for help meant they shared his crime. Which apparently, in their minds, meant life imprisonment.

Arina had never expected to meet people who made _her_ look diplomatic.

So now Arina, and the rest of SG-1 for that matter, were tumbling through the Stargate to 'the prison planet, Hadante'.

Also apparently, two weeks wasn't enough time to fully recover from the proximity burns from that vulture's plasma cannons getting so close to her, or the tiny shrapnel wounds from being too close to her own missile. So she was hissing in pain as she came back up to her feet.

Aaaand there went 'Roshur', the guy they'd helped. Up to his feet and running instantly, despite Colonel O'Neill's protest.

Arina looked around as she rose. Hm... it looked like they were underground, there was earth underfoot, some plant life, and the closest things to 'structures' were very, very large tree roots - one being at least twice as wide as she was tall (admittedly not the highest challenge). And where in hell was the light coming from?

The roots seemed to hide the inhabitants of Hadante - people were slowly nosing out from behind them, presumably to see the newbies. Dressed the same as Roshur had been - very rough-woven clothing, quite 'medieval peasant', which seemed starkly at odds with the gleaming aircraft with its _teleportation beam_ the Taldor had used to capture them. The prison locals being dressed like this, she could understand, but Roshur had just come from their homeworld. And they were all emitting a low, long whistle as they edged closer.

Arina was almost tempted to respond with the feline snarl her old unit had used to signal each other, before Doctor Jackson interrupted with a rather prudent question: "Why are they whistling?"

"O'Neill," Teal'c called, crouching down and drawing attention to something beneath them - a pair of smoking boots.

Captain Carter moved over to look, and immediately looked away. "Ugh, my God..."

Arina could smell the burning flesh, so she didn't bother looking - instead, she was opening up her fatigues slightly so she could slip her hand in, up her shirt... and the rewarding touch of cool metal made her smile.

"The wounds are cauterized," Teal'c noted.

"Yeah, so?" Colonel O'Neill prompted.

"So, whoever it was must have been standing in front of the gate when it opened," Captain Carter explained. "Disintegrated by the vortex."

Doctor Jackson again had the operative question. "... Why would anyone do that?"

About the best answer Arina could think of was 'I don't know', so she refrained from saying anything pointless.

Then one of the inhabitants came from behind the gate, darting in, grabbing the shoes, and standing up, staring silently at Captain Carter, the nearest member of SG-1.

"It's okay," Carter tried to reassure him. He began moving away, and she followed. "We're not going to hurt you. Please, we just want to talk to you." She grasped his shoulder to try and slow him down, make him listen. "It's all right, we just want to talk to you."

Teal'c and Arina noticed the prisoners beginning to converge on the scientist's position around the same time. "Captain Carter!" The two of them, and Colonel O'Neill and Doctor Jackson, began moving to catch up with her, Arina pulling the one bit of gear the Taldor hadn't taken away from under her uniform as she moved.

A very, very large prisoner moved up behind Captain Carter, and hefted her up bodily. Carter flailed in surprise for a moment, before slamming her head back into the man's nose - it didn't shake his grip, though.

Arina brought up her MSP - a tiny, two-barrelled half-kilogram silent pistol barely the size of her palm - as she ducked to the side. She couldn't get a shot at the man holding Carter from the front, as Carter's body blocked most of him off, but... little bit to the side, and she squeezed the trigger.

No big show, just the whisper of a click, and Carter's attacker howled in pain. The SP-3 rounds weren't incredibly powerful and he was a damned big man, so a poorly-placed shot like that wouldn't take him down, but it ought to make him reconsider his intentions on Captain Carter. Arina reserved her second shot - the MSP took time to reload, so she'd have to rely more on fear than force here.

The man let go, clutching at the hole in his side, even as a powerful female voice cracked across the prison: "Vishnor!"

Captain Carter immediately whirled around and brought up her arms, ready to continue the fight. Arina noted that the man had stopped - both pain, and fear of that voice - and whisked her MSP away. Colonel O'Neill was eyeing her, though.

And the prisoners hemming in around them parted, leaving a channel through them, through which an elderly woman strode. Past Carter, and in front of the rest of SG-1. The hulking prisoner - Vishnor, presumably - froze still under a glance, and the woman proceeded to ignore him. She paused, evaluating them for a moment, before speaking. "You have been sent through the Great Circle."

Doctor Jackson nodded. "Well, yes, but that was an-"

The woman shook her head. "You have been sentenced to life imprisonment for your crimes, or you would not be here. I am Linea."

Doctor Jackson seemed a bit at a loss, but was recovering rapidly. "Well, I'm Daniel..." He gestured to each soldier as he said their names. "This is Jack, Captain Carter, Teal'c, and Sergeant Volkova. If you're the one who stopped this attack, I... suppose we're... grateful."

Colonel O'Neill seemed to develop a sudden coughing fit. Apparently Daniel hadn't spotted Arina's gun - it _was_ a very quiet weapon, so it was understandable.

Linea raised an eyebrow, glancing at the large prisoner behind them, clutching at his wounded side. And then cast a look at Arina.

She knew. She didn't know _what_ Arina had done, but she knew Arina had done it. The woman was extremely sharp.

Too sharp to be turning down a free message of her power in a prison environment. Fear was what kept these places running. She stepped between Arina and Captain Carter, laying a hand on each of their shoulders. "These women are under my protection. They are not to be taken by any man." Ugh. Arina hadn't even adjusted to considering that possibility yet.

Captain Carter shook her head. "Ah, no, it's all ri-" She stopped under both Linea and Arina's _looks_.

Linea turned her gaze to the large prisoner. "Is that clear, Vishnor?"

The man cringed, blood still seeping out from between his fingers where he held his wounded side.

"Is that _clear_?"

Vishnor turned, walking away... he didn't stagger, didn't want to show that he was weakened, but there was a heaviness to his motion. Unless he had some real friends in here, the man was going to be getting a beating once his energy ran out. At that point his position in the prison's social order would be gone, replaced by whatever gang smacked him and his around - assuming they didn't just kill him.

Arina would probably be more sympathetic if he hadn't just attacked Captain Carter and outright refused a 'do not rape these women' order from Linea.

The prisoners slowly began to disperse.

Linea turned back to Captain Carter. "You were saying?"

"Ah, that I can, uh, take care of myself." Probably a bit distracted from the rapid changes in events... barely fifteen minutes ago they had been about to return home from a routine exploration, and in that time they'd been arrested, sentenced to life imprisonment by people they'd never met, thrown into prison, assaulted by inmates, and rescued.

Arina shook her head. "They not know us - we can fend off, but we have to. She already has, take advantage of it." Ugh. She wished she were better at this language, she sounded like a three-year-old.

Linea nodded. "I mean no disrespect. But I know what it is to be a woman in Hadante." She turned back to the rest of SG-1 with a sigh. "For what little it is worth... welcome." Linea turned away in a swirl of her reddish robes, and strode away.

"Oh, ah, excuse me, but-but-but-"

"Daniel," Colonel O'Neill cut off his semi-babble. "I think that's about it for the welcome wagon." He nodded to Captain Carter as she rejoined their group. "You all right?"

She nodded. "Yes sir."

He turned to Arina. "And Volkova, how many guns were you carrying? This is getting a little disturbing."

Doctor Jackson blinked a few times as Arina brought her MSP back out, using the moment's breather to pop up the barrel and pull the clip out, and drop the casing from the fired round - the MSP was a stealth weapon, it didn't eject its casings - replacing it with a new round. She didn't have all that many, but she may as well keep it filled while she could.

Arina shrugged. "Only four. Guess they didn't strip-search to find this one. Appreciate that." She snapped the barrels closed, slipping the little holdout away.

Colonel O'Neill held up a finger. "The fact that I only find out you're carrying a gun in your panties when it actually turns out useful does not mean that it's always a good idea. Just... for the record."

Arina nodded. "Understood, sir." Bra strap, actually, but she could see no possible gain to pointing that out.

The Colonel clapped his hands together. "Okay, kids. We know what the situation is. Now how do we get out of it?"

Unfortunately, getting the Stargate - lacking in a DHD - functional enough to send them back home was mostly a technical problem - not within Arina's expertise. She'd contribute where she could, but suspected her main use in this little fracas would be in busting heads.

Places like this, you had no rights. There were probably a lot of innocents, but the monsters were stronger. And they didn't believe in anything - not even force, until you demonstrated it. She didn't really look forward to demonstrating it, but she was going to end up having to point out that not only were they under a dangerous person's protection, but they were dangerous themselves.

Make sure the smart ones could do their job.

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

"We'd better hurry, sir," Major Kovacek of SG-9 noted. "The Taldor believe punctuality is emblematic of civilized behaviour."

"They do, do they?" General George Hammond was _not_ a happy Texan. Bad enough if it were just SG-1, and he'd be pissed on that account alone. But since the Taldor had put Volkova into their damn jail on these trumped-up charges too, there was an honest chance of this turning into an international incident.

"We'll be transported almost immediately upon our arrival, to their tal'al, or speaking area," Kovacek continued his briefing as the two men strode through the halls towards the gate room, undeterred by George's sarcasm. "Once there, the Taldor may, or may not, be willing to show you their actual face."

"Why is that?" On the other hand, with the Russian pressure to get Volkova back, he wouldn't have to worry about his own government writing off SG-1 in the name of relations with these more-advanced, and therefore useful, Taldor. Gave him a much freer hand to act than he might have otherwise had.

Kovacek pursed his lips. "To put it politely, sir, they're... xenophobic." He shrugged. "To put it frankly, they're arrogant, narrow-minded, self-centered-"

"I get the picture." George did appreciate it, though - he'd almost forgotten with Kovacek's preference for a diplomatic solution that the commander of SG-9 was just as pissed off as George himself was.

They stepped out into the gate room. "But they do seem to want to maintain diplomatic contact."

George just looked at him. That and two dollars might buy Earth a cup of coffee. The Taldor being 'advanced' was useless if they weren't willing to open up actual trade relations. And the prerequisite to actual relations was respect - right now, the Taldor hadn't been showing any.

The gate was lit up, gentle blue glow filling the room... "Special envoy, you may embark when ready," Staff Sergeant Laura Davis's voice echoed from her technician station in the control room.

George strode up the ramp, just looking at the beautiful, shimmering blue event horizon. He'd seen it plenty of times, but this time it looked surprisingly intimidating. "... Well, here goes."

"Since this is your first time, sir, a quick word of advice? It's better to exhale just prior to crossing the event horizon. One's instinct is to inhale immediately upon arriving on the other side. Also-"

"I think I'll figure it out on the way," George interrupted. He appreciated the concern, but every person under his command _had_, and while he was old and slow, he wasn't _that_ old and slow. "... You're sure they dialed the correct address?"

Kovacek smiled. "Yes, sir."

"The things I do for these people..." One small step for a Texan...

He had tried the exhale-on-crossing thing, it did make the whole ride quite a bit less mind-boggling than he'd feared. Felt like he was riding a roller-coaster through a tunnel... and then the world around him was well-lit, widely-spaced, open forest.

George looked around, breathing in the fresh, pine-y air. This wasn't really _his_ back home nature, but he'd been to Canada and it was fairly similar. Quite beautiful in a majesty-of-nature sense. The gate whooshed shut behind him.

And then flared. George's eyes widened, and he stepped away from the gate, followed by Major Kovacek. Good idea to avoid that unstable vortex, whoever the new visitors were...

After the roiling stabilized into a blue rippling event horizon, George saw them. Two. They both seemed to almost float through the gate, coming to land on the ground only once they were through.

The first one out was a girl, maybe eighteen. Looked asian, slim and fit, with short dark hair and eyes, somewhere between black and slate-grey. Civilian dress - yellow, Chinese-style shirt, short blue-grey skirt, brown slippers. And a pistol rested at her right hip - not a type he was familiar with. She quickly looked around, and took up a flanking position alongside the second one through the gate.

This one was a grown man - George would eyeball him as... thirty? Fourty? His features didn't look so much aged as _hardened_. Rather tall, dressed in billowing white almost fantastical clothing, and with long... dark green... hair, and pale brown, almost gold, eyes. A strange circlet decorated his forehead.

The man turned to George, and bowed slightly, green hair falling neatly to the side. "Good, I'm not late."

George recognized that voice. He'd only heard it once, but under the circumstances it was the kind of thing you remembered. "... Colonel Vindel Mauser? What are you doing here?"

Mauser rose. "It came to my attention that you were about to negotiate with a group that kidnapped your premiere team. I thought I would show solidarity."

George cocked his head. "I mean no offense, but what do you get out of this?"

"There are two answers to your question, General Hammond." He paused. "Actually, my apologies - three. The first: Earth is my homeworld, and I still live in the neighbourhood. Its defence remains important to me, both sentimentally and practically. Your SG-1 is one of the strongest forces you have for its defence. On that account, they must be returned."

Kovacek held up a hand. "Ah... Colonel... they're five people. They're great soldiers, granted, but... lynchpin of Earth's defence...?"

"Do not underestimate 'people', Major. A good soldier with a good weapon is superiour to every wonder weapon ever imagined. And an excellent soldier in the right place, with the right equipment... that can save or destroy a world."

George glanced at the silent girl at his side. The way she stayed close to Mauser seemed a bit more than professional - not sexual or romantic, there was no touching and nothing in the way she looked up at him that indicated that, but almost... filial. Very hard to see even that much, the girl's expression was blank and she hadn't said a word. But at this point, he really didn't want to risk the offer of help by airing his concerns about her youth - to an extent he hated himself for it, but he didn't know that girl, and he had to save _his_ people first. "And the other reasons?" He was expecting one of them to be 'you'll owe me' - and if Mauser pulled it off, he would, but that didn't mean he'd compromise his duty to repay it.

"The second: If SG-1 are held, information regarding our world gets out into the galaxy at large. Even if you do not believe in their power to save a world, they do hold information that, in the wrong hands, could doom it. Again, we both need and want Earth to remain safe."

"Fair enough. And the third?"

"That brings us back to solidarity, General. Whether we operate under the same command or not, you are Tau'ri. We are Tau'ri. We will both receive the same response from the galaxy at large. If they do not act civilized to your people, they will not to mine. Protecting your people is the same as protecting my own."

George nodded slowly. "Well, I can't stop you... just make clear that we're from different commands."

"Of course. Ah..." He paused, tapping something at his collar. "Testing, one, two... and three." The 'three' came out in the ancient Egyptian derivative spoken across the galaxy, as did his remaining words. "Do our translators work? We had to rush the prototype into service for this."

"... An automatic translation device? Uh... it works, but isn't that completely science fiction?"

Colonel Mauser coughed politely, gesturing to the Stargate.

"... Okay, fine, but it's a bit different seeing it from a group that says it's from Earth."

"In fairness, these are reverse-engineered from aliens who tried to invade. They do not analyze unknown languages, either - one must load the appropriate database onto the translator. Also a little glitchy, they will translate names and expressions without consideration to their intended sound. But they suffice. Do inform me if I end up telling the Taldor that my hovercraft is full of eels, though."

George paused. "Wait, back that up for a minute, aliens who tried to-"

That was the point when the gleaming Taldor aircraft arrived overhead, shining its light down on them...

... and the world vanished.

George, Mauser, Kovacek, and the girl stood in darkness. George would comment on the decor, but there was _nothing_ - simply a purely dark, absolutely unlit room. He supposed he'd have to sideline that 'alien invasion' bit for later.

A light shone down on them, and a woman's voice spoke, echoing as if the room was very large. "You are most punctual."

_This_ was a courtroom? Or a meeting place...? The oppressive darkness of the room felt... absolutely wrong for either.

"Thank you," Kovacek responded.

A male voice: "You are the one called General Hammond?"

"Yes." George looked around, trying to find where the voices were coming from. "I am responsible for those people you have imprisoned."

"By using the word 'responsible'," Kovacek noted, "the general is in no way assuming accountability for the actions of SG-1." He lowered his voice. "Begging your pardon, sir, I don't want you to end up in prison along with them."

George turned towards where he _thought_ one of the voices may have come from... "On the contrary! I would gladly hold myself responsible. I ordered them to this world in the first place."

"Is this an admission of guilt?" The woman asked.

"No, it is not," Colonel Mauser stated. George was about to angrily override the Colonel, when Mauser went onto a much less obsequious tack than he'd expected from that start. "It is impossible to be guilty of an action which is not a crime. Your jurisdiction does not extend to Earth. There is no action that can be taken on our world that is any of your affair."

"Who is this?" the man asked.

The Colonel looked up with a little smirk, arms folded. "Vindel Mauser. I am the commander of a force allied with General Hammond's."

"Then you do not belong here."

"The mistreatment of General Hammond's people will be considered mistreatment of my own. I am part of this negotiation to prove that it is not merely one nation that you have angered."

"The members of your 'SG-1' stand guilty of aiding a murderer, and were tried under law. This is not mistreatment."

George glared in the vague direction of that voice. They seemed to keep moving, he'd heard that guy before from another side of the room. "The members of SG-1 had no way of knowing that man's crime. Nor of knowing that aiding him constituted a crime. We will gladly accept exile from your world - if you want, we'll never come back. There is absolutely no effect punishment or leniency of SG-1 will have on your society."

"Ignorance is not a valid defence."

"They were from another world! There was no possible way for them to have not _been_ ignorant!"

"That is irrelevant. There are no appeals."

George shook his head. They were starting to go around in circles, and he didn't know the Taldor legal code - assuming they even _had_ a legal code beyond 'bad = life imprisonment' - anywhere near well enough to lawyer them out. So it was time to bull-rush it. "If my people are not released, the imprisonment of SG-1 will be considered a hostile act. Peaceful relations between our two worlds will end - right here, right now." In the end that would probably amount to cutting off prospective trade relations, unless the Russians pulled some spectacular diplomacy and got the United States to sign off on military action to get them back. Unless he got lucky, the threat was more powerful than the action.

"Our law is immutable," the woman stated.

"The books may not bend, but the people can," Mauser noted.

"You imply we break the law."

"You were given ample opportunity to discuss this, to negotiate in a civilized fashion. But like barbarians, you continually refuse to see matters from any perspective but your own. And you hold force and threats of action against General Hammond's attempts at reason and diplomacy - I heard that implied threat of imprisoning him."

"You insult-"

"If you wish to do this the barbaric way," Vindel interrupted, "then it will be done the barbaric way. For the sake of General Hammond, I will first clarify that he has no knowledge of, nor relationship to, the actions I am about to take." He unfolded his arms, pushing one of his voluminous sleeves up to glance at a watch. "From this moment forward. For every hour that his personnel are not returned, there will be destruction on your world. I will not specify the way, nor the target. Know simply that every hour, something will break on your world, until SG-1 is returned to the place where the gate lies."

George stared at the man.

"... This is extortion," the male Taldor voice eventually responded.

"This is hostage negotiation. If you are going to be criminals, you have no place complaining when others respond on your level."

"Taldor are justice. A crime is by definition an act against justice. Justice cannot commit crime."

"Actions are not legitimate merely by virtue of being carried out by an authority. An authority's legitimacy depends on the actions they take. State terrorism is still terrorism."

"On this world of Rillaan, your threats are a crime."

The girl's hand drifted towards her sidearm.

Vindel's lips quirked. "If you are considering placing me under arrest, do note that my subordinates are waiting for me. If I fail to return, you will not even have a world."

There was a sudden howling sound echoing through the room, and several members of the Taldor could be heard yelling in surprise.

"Word travels fast on this world. I presume you have heard of the explosive detonation over one of your islands that I ordered just a moment ago? In fact, by that sound, I would imagine that at least one of you is _on_ said island... most useful to know. It was an airburst, of course, and non-toxic. There will be no damage. This time. So what will it be?"

"... You may go. Release of SG-1 is impossible," the woman eventually stated.

"Why?" George asked, casting another look at Mauser. He couldn't say he was entirely comfortable with someone who detonated explosives to make a point, but doing it nonlethally wasn't honestly all that objectionable, and to some extent he appreciated having an ally along who actually _was_ free to threaten to blow things up if his people didn't get returned. George would probably be making the same threats if he had the authority to.

... Was Mauser playing the bad cop to George's good cop?

"There are no returns from Hadante. For anyone. It is not possible."

Vindel inclined his head. "That's your problem now."

The light shut out, leaving them in total darkness. The Taldor never had showed their faces, had they...?

And then a moment later, they were back in the forest in front of the gate. And in the middle of a group of armoured soldiers. Heavy equipment was still being set up around them.

George blinked. "... You brought troops through the gate?"

Mauser nodded. "A few. The 'Taldor' have, for the moment, been unwilling to open hostilities. I'd expect their command chain is too top-down for the people floating overhead to take action, and the highest commanders likely still haven't been briefed - the fascist air they affected back there would seem to imply it."

"And what are you going to do when they get orders through? With your threats of action, they _will_ blow you away."

"That is why as soon as you have left, my people will be moving the gate to a more secure location." Colonel Mauser gestured to a few vaguely humanoid forms - not the rounded flying ones, but smaller, cruder... power loaders? "We will leave a message and equipment for SG-1 to contact us when they are returned to this location, and if you wish to use the gate, simply call ahead and we will arrange it."

George nodded, and frowned. "... You know, they may have meant that they can't get SG-1 back. It's possible they're just taking the zero-tolerance stance to cover up that they can't fix it."

"It's quite possible. But they caused this situation. Your people did not. They get to reap the rewards."

"You're going to kill innocent people over this?"

"Oh no, property destruction, absolutely taking all efforts to avoid loss of life. If it lasts long enough to set up an intelligence network then we may end up blowing up the Taldor themselves, but I have _never_ targeted people who are not involved." Vindel paused. "That said, if they _are_ unable to retrieve SG-1, this ends up as a mere act of vengeance. It makes our displeasure known, but it does not get them back. You have greater experience with the gate network, General, and far more personnel to work with - if a solution is to be found, it will be found with you." He bowed, stepping back and gesturing to the gate.

George pursed his lips. "... We'll talk about this later."

"You know how to get in contact with us."

George nodded, moving to the gate with Kovacek in tow.

The girl finally spoke up as he finished dialing. "... Good luck. Bring them back." Mauser glanced at her, a bit of surprise written across his features.

George turned to her, and put on his grandfatherly It's All Right smile. "SG-1 always comes home. It's a law of nature."

She nodded sharply, stepping back alongside Colonel Mauser.

George turned back to the gate, squared his shoulders, and marched through. Considering the last words he heard were 'Oh, and tell O'Neill she won't get to test out that Blackhole Engine idea on this world after all' (though directed, apparently, at the girl at Vindel's side), he had _no intention_ of going back.

He'd ask his other questions when he was far, far away from any planet where the term 'black hole' came up.

He shucked the vest as soon as he was back in the SGC, marching out of the gate room and through the hall with Kovacek struggling to keep up. He'd called together a panel in the briefing room for when he returned - he hadn't really expected this point in the negotiations to get them back.

It was a matter of a few minutes and a lot of returned salutes before he stood in the briefing room - and they were there. General Hammond himself stood at the head of the table, already lowering himself into his seat. He hadn't even bothered changing out of his fatigues, clothing was a great deal less important than this.

Major Kovacek, catching his breath, took a seat at the table - he was here to provide diplomatic options.

Janet Fraiser, in the event a medical opinion was needed - it probably wouldn't, but there was nothing lost by having her ready.

The rest were new additions to the SGC.

Closest to Hammond was a tallish woman with short-cut red hair and green eyes, somewhere in her late thirties or early fourties. Lieutenant-Commander Jane Shepard, previously of Canada's Joint Task Force 2 (he wasn't sure if anyone had ever got around to asking what had happened to the first one), and now commander of the new SG-10. Here to provide the combat options. Normally the most prominent combat team commander short of O'Neill was Colonel Makepeace of SG-3, but SG-3 was off on a recon mission and Makepeace himself was... indisposed. (Fraiser had said something about the urinary tract, and George had immediately closed his ears.)

Across from Shepard was a Russian man of the same age, a face that looked odd now that he wasn't smiling. Uniform standing out as usual - Colonel Alexei Zukhov, SG-11, here to represent the Russians in this.

Next to Zukhov, a woman with tightly tied-back black hair, equally Russian. Doctor Svetlana Markova - new to the gate program, but not to DHD analysis, and with Carter gone, she was now the SGC's top physicist.

And across from Markova, a younger woman, bright-faced, with long red hair tied back behind her head in a loose ponytail, blue eyes, and freckles. And dressed in a brownish almost cowboy-ish style, down to the hat, for reasons George was honestly terrified to ask - she was _Welsh_, Doctor Rhonwen Browning of the British SG-20, and his new number two anthropologist. (He hoped SG-21 finished training soon, he'd heard good things about Doctor May Dripey.)

George took a deep breath. "All right. So far, negotiations with the Taldor have been unproductive - and threats don't seem to work either, Shadow Mirror tagged along with those negotiations and their threats weren't responded to." He cast a look around the table. "In case that misses anyone's notice, that means we have a leak. I'm going to want that found, but that's for later, not this meeting." He folded his hands in front of him on the table. "In summary, SG-1 has been taken captive by a human world with technology seemingly far more advanced than our own. I want you to reduce this to brass tacks and give me ideas on how to fix it."

Shepard cleared her throat. "Seems like our objectives are simple - get SG-1 back, and secure the Taldor as a trading partner. Care to clear up the order on that? Which one are you calling secondary?"

"You've got the order right, Commander."

She smiled slightly, leaning back. "Then I'd probably be remiss to not point out that we could just blow things up until they hand them back."

"I considered it, but at the moment I don't have the authority to do that. If it makes you feel better, Shadow Mirror is doing that right now. They were nonresponsive to offers of trade, as well - they claim that they _can't_ return them, though they were unclear as to whether this was because of an inability, or an inflexible legal code."

Markova nodded. "Let us assume, then, that they are telling the truth. How could the prison be one-way, and how could we get them back without going through the Taldor?"

Zukhov glanced at her. "Should we assume that? They could be lying."

Browning tapped the table, shaking her head and speaking in a Texan accent. "If they're lyin', ain't much more we c'n do 'bout it. Y'all'll need permission from up top ta go in force, and they're holdin' ta their story so negotiatin' ain't gonna work - 'least, not fast."

George glanced at her. "... Your Texas accent is thicker than mine, Browning. You're _Welsh_."

She laughed. "Aw, don't mind it. An insult to thy heritage was not intended - this is merely method acting." Somehow, her words mutated from starting with a cowboy accent over to borderline-Elizabethan.

"... Right."

Kovacek spoke up in the strange lull that ensued. "Look, I might be the minority opinion here, but negotiation _could_ still work. Do we really want to be risking the peaceful outcome working at all because it's not fast enough?"

"The priority was team retrieval, _then_ peaceful relations," Zukhov noted. "I might be a minority opinion myself, but I do not want to be the minor partner in an alliance with people who have already demonstrated a lack of consideration or respect for any legal codes but their own."

The murmur that went around the table indicated that he was not - including from Kovacek himself. "I'm not saying compromise getting SG-1 back. We can shut the gate once we have them. But another solution could get a lot of people killed. Theirs, ours, and maybe even SG-1 themselves."

Shepard shook her head. "They could string this out for years and keep bleeding us dry. It wouldn't be the first time it happened. First rule of hostage negotiation is that you only give them what they want to get them into a position to get things done yourself - if you keep giving them stuff to get your people back, they'll learn that holding your people gets them stuff."

"So?" George asked, turning to Markova and Browning. "Any ideas why they'd call it 'impossible' to get back from Hadante?"

Markova shook her head. "Too many ideas, General, and not enough evidence to rule out even the silliest. It could be through the gate, it could be into a bottomless pit for all we know at this point."

Shepard frowned. "So basically, the problem is that we don't know what this prison is or where it is."

Browning perked up. "Solution: Someone goes 'n gits 'emselves arrested."

Most of the people around the room stared at the British redhead.

Shepard, though, was tapping her chin. "No... it could work. Put a tracer on our crook, track where they go, have a backup team with them to watch the gate and see if it gets dialed... We could have a fix on the prison if it's pretty much anywhere on the planet, or which planet it's on. A well-hidden tracer should stay - uniforms weren't returned, so it looks like prisoners are only stripped of their outer belongings, not strip-searched."

"This would leave us with _another_ missing trooper," George felt it necessary to point out.

"So volunteer-only mission, but if we know where the prison is, we get a whole new world of options, and what we need to come up with any better solutions - information. And if it's an offworld location, we have even more options that we can pursue, completely cutting the Taldor out of it. SGC's got a lot of experience with the gate, so I'd call it very likely that you could find out why SG-1 can't get back once you know the location, and send them whatever they need _to_ get back. If it's onworld, we can investigate, maintain radio contact with our crook, and find out why SG-1 can't get back, and see if we can scrounge up a solution."

"... The fact that this is the best plan we have come up with fills me with fear for the times ahead," Markova muttered.

"And not just you... but this is the best we've got." George stood up. "I want you to keep battering away and get any further plans, and pull as many kinks as you can out of it. I'm going to see if I can go get permission for our volunteer to break the Taldor law. Try to find me a better option before we have to do it."

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Arklight Blue was less... gleeful about violence... than most of Shadow Mirror's soldiers, but he well knew there were a lot of battles that had to be fought whether you liked it or not. And securing the freedom of an ally seemed to be one of them.

For the record, Arklight also had absolutely no problems with his name, even if his parents had apparently been the twenty-second century equivalent of hippies - before they died in the Inspector War four years ago, at least.

Still, Arklight kind of hoped he wouldn't have to run this strike. They'd do their damnedest to avoid hurting civilians, but...

... It was out of his hands. All he could do at the moment was run one last check on his ASK-AD02 Ashsaber prototype - an updated version of the Soldifar and Ashcleef he'd started off with two years ago.

His mech hovered in front of the silent gate, calmly waiting. The Ashsaber was calm, at least. That'd have to do for him too.

"Sound off," Claire O'Neill's voice came through the comm. The chevrons thunked into position in rapid succession - apparently they'd MacGuyvered up a direct connection from their computers into the DHD, so they didn't have to take their time pressing buttons anymore - and Arklight was treated to his first direct view of it opening. It was... really pretty. "Gate is dialed and reading ready."

Another voice took over a moment later. "Contact established with recon drone. The Taldor didn't find it... all signs reading nominal. We have a first target." Maria Balthazar, one of the very few Shadow Mirror soldiers younger than him, though not by much.

Arklight nodded, switching his cockpit screens to show the display from the drone - a rather pretty northern climate island seemed to float below him in a sparkling ocean, and the view was centered on a city. Though that might be a loose use of the term, it looked like Lisbon... circa 1550.

He leaned back, and concentrated. Aside from its generally high performance, one of the prizes of the Ashsaber was its Simple Input System, originally prototyped on the Soldifar - a brainwave scanner that radically smoothed out control compared to the difficult-to-learn TC-OS. That one had been pretty much half the reason he'd been able to pilot the Soldifar at all, since he'd basically fallen into the cockpit and learned as he went.

The eight long, wedge-shaped Sword Breakers detached from the Ashsaber's shoulders, and turned to angle forward, towards the gate. "The Breakers look nominal, control is stable."

Now all they had to do was look at the clock. The hour had already passed, right now they were waiting twenty minutes past it - enough that news could arrive from the SGC if SG-1 had arrived right at the last second.

It was a short wait, but it seemed longer. The tension didn't help.

Then Doctor - ah, Lieutenant - O'Neill's voice came again. "Message from W-17. SG-1 has not been returned." She paused a moment. "Begin Thunder Run #1."

Arklight sighed. "Steer me right, Miss Balthazar."

"I will."

Arklight turned his attention to the screens displaying his Sword Breaker cameras, and focused. The eight drones darted forward as one. It was a mere matter of seconds before they were on the other side, and underwater - a small submersible had been pushed through the gate, and the gate dragged as near to the attack point as possible underwater. The Taldor couldn't stop the attack if they didn't know where it was coming from.

The drones surged up through the water, tesla drives cutting down on the drag and allowing them their high speed... and then he was out in the sky. He arced the Sword Breakers up a bit further while he checked where he was on the recon drone's point of view, and then sharply turned them towards the city.

"First target, those ships. Sink, do not blast, there are people on top so they need time to evacuate."

Arklight nodded, finding it very easy to identify the targets when Miss Balthazar outlined them in red on his display - honest-to-god sailing ships, even made out of wood. Four of them, so he split his attention and directed two Breakers at each.

The Breakers skimmed over the waves towards their targets, and at the last moment he dove them below the water. Instantly, they became makeshift torpedoes, their sharp-bladed edges and high-temperature plasma sheath allowing them to instantly slash and burn through the wooden hulls below the waterline.

And out, back up above water, and he brought the Sword Breakers back together, moving in on the city while the ships began sinking behind him.

"Statue." Very large, something on the order of fifty meters tall, a humanoid figure holding up a lantern and looking out sternly over the ocean.

With a thought, the Sword Breakers' noses split open, allowing the particle accelerators hidden within the drones to fire once each, at the legs.

Arklight had been careful to only evaporate the _front_ half of the statue's legs, so as it began tilting to fall, it moved towards the ocean - he brought the Sword Breakers around behind it and rammed it with all eight to make sure it fell in the right direction before he moved onto the next target.

"Storehouse, no thermal signatures."

He dove the Sword Breakers towards it, unsheathing the particle accelerators again.

"Wait, thermal signature, hit the roads instead." Someone must have taken cover in the building.

Instantly, Arklight snapped the Sword Breakers up and down the nearest port road. There were a fair number of people along it, just now realizing that they were under attack and running in panic. It practically looked like medieval period dress... hadn't they said the Taldor were ahead of Earth?

Arklight took aim at the areas where there weren't any people, firing very, very carefully. Sections of road disintegrated under his efforts - there were carts of trade goods being abandoned by their owners as well, but Arklight avoided them. They were after government property, not what belonged to the people here.

O'Neill's voice came. "Okay, we've blasted enough for this hour, get the Breakers back to the gate."

The Breakers snapped around, and darted back over the town to the sea. On their cameras, he could see the ships continuing to take on water - he hadn't punched large enough holes to sink them _that_ fast, so there was plenty of time to evacuate.

He saw it at the same time Miss Balthazar did. "You are being pursued." A gleaming silvery aircraft, in stark contrast to the medieval conditions of the city. Shaped almost like a disk... it looked like a bloody flying saucer. It was catching up fast, too - its inferior drag-shaping wasn't enough to make up for the substantially higher thrust it had.

Arklight flipped one of the Sword Breakers around, firing a shot at its side, blowing off a fair chunk of it and leaving the inside plain to view. It veered to the left. Odd that it hadn't fired... maybe it didn't have enough range?

"Thermal signatures disappeared... crew must have evacuated by transporter."

Arklight flipped the remaining Breakers, blowing it apart over the sea before it veered back over the city - didn't want it to crash into someone's house, after all. And then flipped them around to resume their escape - they'd shut down the wormhole and have the submersible crew (all W-Series) return the drones, and then move the gate again.

Since the mission seemed to have calmed down, Arklight brought up one of his smaller screens and began going over the mission recordings - he wanted to confirm zero casualties.

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Jane Shepard was honestly looking forward to this, on one hand - she and O'Neill were presently even on which had bailed which out, so this one would _finally_ put her in the lead.

On the other hand, she didn't know her team very well yet. She'd chosen them, and she'd worked with Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko a _little_, but she had not yet seen enough of these people to really work seamlessly with them.

Though really, all Jane, Kaidan, and the other two members of Canada's SG Team - Sergeants Ashley Williams and Ryoko Asakura (immigrant, thus the Japanese name) - had to do was stay hidden, this round out.

The one who was getting arrested was another member of the British SG Team - Lance Corporal Cedric Diggory, a youngish man with somewhat disquietingly pretty features. He looked a little irritable as he checked his Accuracy International AWM sniper rifle - he'd basically be going to the first area he found and firing potshots over the Taldor until they arrested him.

General Hammond stood in front of the team as they prepared - Jane didn't bother checking her C-8 again, she'd been over it already. "All right. Everyone here knows the details already. Unfortunately, we have not found any better plans. So in SG-1's name, I'm going to thank you for volunteering."

Diggory shot a short glare across the gate room at Rhonwen Browning, muttering "So shouldn't have made that bet..."

"For a given definition of 'volunteer'," Hammond continued, undeterred. "I don't need to elaborate that this is a risky mission."

"Less insane than blind-jumping onto an invasion fleet with four guys and C-4," Shepard noted. By which she meant 'fun' - she'd really have to find a way to even up that score with O'Neill.

"That it is. We're going to call ahead before you drop off to see where the gate has been moved to, so don't go jumping out right away." General Hammond looked up, past the Canadian and British SG members, to the control room. "Begin dialing the gate."

The stone gate's inner ring began to spin, and Jane watched. She'd been on a couple offworld acclimation ops already, but the gate was still a little new to her.

"Chevron one encoded."

It started spinning to the second stage... but then the gate lit up, alarms sounding.

"Incoming wormhole." The iris swirled shut. "IDC received - it's SG-3." The iris opened again, and General Hammond and the assembled reconnaissance team turned to watch the event horizon as six people trailed out.

Jane tsked once she saw O'Neill. They were still even on rescues, then. Diggory looked a little more pleased, though.

Quick head count, and Jane nodded. All five members of SG-1, plus one extra. She lowered her weapon, indicating the rest of her team to stand down, and tossed a short salute in O'Neill's direction. The bastard was immortal.

General Hammond found words a moment later. "... Where in the name of heaven did you come from?"

"Prison, actually," O'Neill chirped, grinning. "We just broke out. Volkova had to boot another escapee away from the gate, I didn't want too many unidentified crooks from a supermax penitentiary loose in the galaxy with knowledge of the gate system. Went to SG-3's scheduled mission site and bummed the GDO off 'em."

"Well, ho-" Hammond cut himself off a moment later, realizing that it would be a longer story and he'd need to be emotionally ready to hear it. "SG-9 and I spent the last two days trying to negotiate your release - with no luck, I might add. We were about to try something insane."

O'Neill nodded, catching sight of Jane. "I can see that. Hey Shep, SGC agreeing with you?"

Jane raised an eyebrow. "Not too bad. I could get used to it. I've read your mission logs, you still haven't got rid of that trouble-attracting aftershave of yours?" As a Lieutenant-Commander, she was equivalent to a Major - two grades below O'Neill. But special forces in general, and O'Neill in particular, were permissive enough that they could get away with banter.

O'Neill shook a head, pointing at her. "Oh no no no, that was all you. I haven't forgotten you _proposing_ to our pilot just before we parachuted out that one time in 85."

Jane looked up, reminiscing with a little smirk. His memory must've sanitized it - she'd proposed _as_ she jumped out. Her younger years had been a bit wild. "Hey, as I recall that mission turned out smooth as silk. Probably the only one we worked together on that _did_, actually..."

"Friend of yours, Jack?" Daniel Jackson asked.

O'Neill shrugged. "Oh, we worked together a couple of times - just so you know, any stories she tells you are lies and fabrications."

"Hey, you wound me, Jack, I wouldn't break the classified info like that."

Samantha Carter blinked. "Wait... the US doesn't use women in ground combat roles, I only get away with it because combat isn't technically my job and nobody really pays attention to the fact that it happens... how the heck did you work together?"

Jane tapped the maple leaf patch on her shoulder. "Being Canadian. All roles open, except submariners, and that one isn't likely to be too long." Though they'd technically only opened up _after_ she'd been in combat roles - the tale of her military service was a sordid one indeed.

Carter looked a little irritated, and O'Neill caught on it, grinning at her. "Wishing you were Canadian now?"

"Mm... just a short fantasy. I like the US, warts and all."

General Hammond coughed into his hand, and gestured to the elderly woman standing with SG-1. "If I may ask?"

O'Neill chuckled. "Ah, I'm sorry. General Hammond, this is..." He searched for the name for a moment. "Linea."

"We wouldn't have gotten out without her, sir," Carter added.

Hammond smiled, bowing his head. "Then we owe you a debt, ma'am. Welcome to the SGC."

The woman looked around the gate room in wonder. "... I have never seen such a place. It seems so... alien."

The tall black man at the back of SG-1 - Teal'c - nodded solemnly. "So it was for me. Over time, it has become... home." He looked down for a moment. "I shall very much miss it when the facility is moved. But perhaps it will become a new home."

There was a moment as the members of SG-1 smiled at the man - Jane tugged Williams's gaze away from the moment, and Alenko and Asakura looked away as well. This wasn't between them.

It was a little while before Carter spoke up, breaking the moment. "General Hammond, sir, with your permission I'd like to offer Linea quarters here at the base. There's a great deal she has to teach us. In fact, I brought back samples of a root, that with Linea's activators, can generate a-"

"I'll take that into consideration, Captain," Hammond interrupted, before the technobabble could ensue. "In the meantime, I'd like you all to report to the infirmary, including your guest - begging your pardon, ma'am, it's merely a precaution."

Linea nodded. "Oh, I would do the same."

"We'll debrief after you've all had a chance to rest." He turned to Jane and SG-10. "And you can all stand down."

The groups began to disperse from the gate room, Williams moving up alongside Jane. "So wait, Commander, you're married? How the heck did this not come up?"

"Two reasons, Williams. Number one, wedding bands as brass knuckles? Hurt you more than the other guy." She'd learned that one the hard way. "So I keep it off on-duty. And he's USAF, he's been a little busy since the time this team came together."

"Huh. How does that work, exactly?" Alenko asked. "I mean, it doesn't really seem like you can talk about your work much."

"You'd be surprised how often it dovetails, actually. When it doesn't," she shrugged. "What do normal couples do when one of them's military? Talk about other things."

Asakura hadn't been saying much, though as she pulled off her helmet, Williams had to ask one thing. "Okay, seriously, long hair, fine... but why is it _blue_?"

Asakura blinked, smiling at Williams and twirling a lock of hair around her finger. "Dye."

"That answer was so obvious, I'm feeling kind of ashamed to have needed to ask."

Asakura chuckled. "Don't worry, I've been asked many, many times..."

Jane pulled off her helmet and whapped Asakura on the back. "Come on, let's get to the locker rooms and ditch all this gear, we can talk casual in the cafeteria."

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Vindel Mauser shook his head, closing the folder on the world of Rillaan.

There were definite problems over there, the Taldor almost seemed to be pulling the same schtick the goa'uld were - holding themselves above the populace, trapping those under them in medieval peasantry and keeping the advanced technologies for their own use.

But Shadow Mirror was, at this point, in total, one hundred and fifty thousand people - about the size of the present-day army of _Bangladesh_. They could blow up Rillaan, they had the firepower for that. But they didn't have the people to spare to actually oust a regime. Not if they planned to cover for all their other commitments.

Oh, it was on the list. They'd see if it wasn't feasible to liberate it, but later. They already had a handful of wars on their plate, and while he planned to attend to it, he wasn't going to add the Taldor to his list of active shooting enemies until he'd either resolved one of the two they were embroiled with, or they were at least in a better position for it - uncontrolled wars only broke things, and usually his things. Though they could probably do with getting some more salvaged technology from them to analyze, the fragments of those patrol saucers could do with some supplementing.

He looked up - Lemon had seated herself rather comfortably on the side of his desk. "All right. What's the status of our SGC intelligence?"

The scientist shook her head. "Our chain of stunts cost us. They've cottoned on to the fact that Momo planted bugs and backdoors in their systems, and are starting to root them out. Fortunately, they don't seem to realize that Lamia transmitted from the bugs to our position."

Momo and Lamia... ah, W-14 and W-17. "Mm... unfortunate. But I suppose it wouldn't have lasted when they moved to a new facility anyway. We may as well use them up."

"Worth it, then?"

"I'd imagine so. SG-1 did return, though our efforts don't seem to have helped - it still benefited us in a foreign relations sense, though. It gave us a statement of intent, at the least."

"Speaking of interrogations, they're going a bit smoother now that we have the translators in early-stage production - though unless Miss Grace hasn't sussed out the answers yet, the 'jaf'fa' really don't know that much at all. And Jail reports some success with inserting and removing a goa'uld from a W-Series without damage to either."

Vindel nodded. "All right, tell him to bring the experiments to a halt, then, unless he gets consent from the snake. That's as far into experimenting on people as I'm willing to go, and Jail _should_ be working on Project Hyperion." He didn't really like even that much of a violation of the Nuremburg Code - one out of the ten tenets, and only to the point where it was absolutely required - but given that it was either learn the techniques now or learn them later when one of the snakes infested one of his people...

"He'll throw a fit," Lemon noted. "He was pretty near salivating over the chance to experiment on a completely alien species."

"Let him." He'd likely still have a bit of trouble sleeping for a few days, at least. Neither he nor the goa'uld had ever signed the Geneva Convention, Nuremburg Code, Hague Conventions, or the dozens and dozens of other articles of the laws of war, but that did _not_ relieve him of the responsibility to act like a human being. He'd have poor standing indeed to complain about the behaviour of the Federation and the goa'uld if he went and did the same as they. "Shadow Mirror does not violate our articles of war."

Lemon nodded. "Oh, and Walther reported progress on the inertial compensators."

Vindel raised an eyebrow. "He knows how they work?"

Lemon coughed into a hand. "He's an engineer, Vindel. He knows _that_ they work. He's constructed a - somewhat - functioning replica by simply copying the arrangement of parts, and is working on the finer details now. I believe the last he said was that some of the parts resemble the internals of the Stargate, the part that generates negative mass to hold open the wormhole throat... he handed me a few spreadsheets to work out the physics, he's better on the practical side than the theoretical. Open question as to whether my analysis or his experimentation will turn out better results faster, though."

"Mm... I've been working him more or less nonstop for over a month, haven't I?"

Lemon shrugged. "Him and O'Neill. Not a surprise, they were the only technical aces you had for a while."

"Still, it will probably freshen their minds a bit if I give them a different task... We'll have to figure something out for them. I was considering sending Vigil Platoon out to P7J-989 to check up on SG-1 - they went out of contact on their mission there, but they've returned by now."

"Again? This is almost the first time they stepped through the gate after the Taldor mess."

"A talented team, aren't they? They're well on their way to becoming the Beowulves of this world."

"I hope you mean that in the sense of achievements only. I don't want to deal with a second iteration of those monsters."

-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-

Author's Notes:

First of all, as always, thanks go out to prereaders (Sunshine Temple, Belgarion213, Ellf, DCG).

And second, as hopefully less frequent than it is at the moment, apologies for taking so long for so short. I was basically stuck on the 'Gamekeeper' coverage, then I realized nothing really relevant happened in Gamekeeper and it was filler for the show, so I may as well drop it - my whole difficulty was in making something actually original happening. Thus, Gamekeeper has been reduced to a one-sentence summary from Vindel - it happened, but isn't relevant.

Alokin: It's a crossover with Super Robot Wars Original Generation - specifically, the second game. Hopefully, you won't need to know SRW to get it - I'm writing it from the Stargate perspective. And you're right the Russians are pissed off - the general population isn't quite as controlled about it as Mister Volkova - a lot of tourists are getting harassed. He just knows who the biggest target is, and that if he acts directly against the Americans, he loses his shot at Apophis, and will create public support for the Americans anyway.

Ack, Deathzealot. I got your review only just as I was putting up chapter 3. It's sort of a crossover with the newer SRW series. One of the antagonist groups in SRW The Inspector is Shadow Mirror, a rebel group from an alternate version of the SRW universe. This Shadow Mirror... missed. And the review is much appreciated.

I figure the System Lords have Voldemort Syndrome, so they try to take care of as much as they can... but do you really think they spent months worth of hours in the grease and oil building a ha'tak's shields and engines? :P _Someone_ has to be making all the fancier toys the goa'uld have, and even if slaves had the skills for the wierder goa'uld technologies, would they really want some random human poking around at it? The tech's how they maintain their image as gods, after all, and there's only so much a System Lord can actually make on his own.

Prisoners mostly didn't turn out all that differently until the very end, despite everyone's attempts, but I figured it merited at least a gloss-over to see what happened. Though my glossover got a few additional bits inserted.

Regarding SG-3's commander... technically, this episode had it as Carl Warren. I have no honest idea - in 1-5, Makepeace was in charge of SG-3, then in 1-18 it was Major Castleman, 2-11 onward they kept Makepeace... I'm not entirely sure whether the staff actually took much look at the continuity, but I'm going to say that Makepeace is the commander and the others take over for him when he gets sidelined with some strange new injury or alien disease.

As far as 'Cedric Diggory', that's mostly an expy and reference to this story: www fanfiction net / s / 3918135 / 1 / The_Sniper (split up so FFNet won't kill it). Decide for yourself whether it's a joke or actually canon :P

Shepard... yeah, I went there. Canada needed a team, so I grabbed people from a Canadian-made game, plus one that anime fans ought to recognize. I considered using manShep, but John Shepard would just be inviting confusion if/when John Sheppard of Atlantis shows up.

As always, reviews, comments, corrections, and etcetera are appreciated whether for good or ill, and my email's always open (PaleWLF gmail com).


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